Essays on espionage and International law

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Essays on Espionage

and International Law

QuiNCY Wright
Julius Stone
Richard A. Falk
Roland J. Stanger

Edited by Roland J. Stanger
With a Foreword by Richard A. Falk

OHIO state university press
1962

legally excuse himself by pleading that he only exe-
cuted the orders of his Government, and the latter will
never interfere, since it cannot officially confess to hav-
ing commissioned a spy/'^ Thus the phenomena of
espionage, although often a significant force in inter-
national relations, never expHcitly ascended in the past
to the state-to-state level of traditional international
law. That is, the rules of the game allowed a state to
employ spies and to prosecute foreign spies that it
could catch. These two situations each involved the re-
lation between a government and an individual, whereas
international law, at least until recently, was exclusively
concerned with the rules binding states in their relations
with one another.

Although international law was generally silent about
espionage, there was some thought given to the special
problem of the treatment of spies during wartime. There
was some desire to give minimum protection to spies
operating in enemy territory in the course of normal
belligerent operations. There does not seem to be such
a great difference between a spy and an enemy soldier
from the perspective of the target state. Evidently, it
seemed rational, as part of the effort to regulate the
conduct of hostilities, to offer a captured belligerent
spy some slight protection against the wrath of the
enemy. This sentiment found its way into the Hague
Regulations in the form of a narrow definition of a spy
and a requirement of trial before punishment. Signifi-
cantly, the Hague Regulations do not make belligerent
espionage a violation of the laws of war. In fact, as
Professor Baxter demonstrates so persuasively, it seems

VI

preferable not to treat belligerent espionage as a viola-
tion of international law.^ For belligerent espionage is
just one of several constituent forms of belligerency. It
expresses a logistic means-end relationship to character-
istic belligerent objectives.

It is not nearly so easy to decide about the legal
status of peacetime espionage, and it is this that is our
primary concern.

Professor Baxter remarks that espionage "is of doubt-
ful compatibihty with the requirements of law govern-
ing peaceful intercourse of states." * The nazi use of fifth
columns and the Soviet development of subversive
techniques of infiltration and takeover^ suggest the
contemporary importance of providing states with some
legal protection against foreign espionage. And yet it
was the American sponsorship of the U-2 overflights of
Soviet territory to obtain aerial photographs of military
targets that led to a resurgence of interest in and con-
cern about the international legal imphcations of espio-
nage.* The United States broke the old rules of the
game by exphcitly defending its recourse to espionage;
in addition, the possibility of nuclear attack from
manned aircraft pointed to the destabilizing eflFect of
the U-2 flights. The Powers trial and the breakup of the
simultaneous Paris "summit" meeting dramatized the
serious political consequences of this kind of espionage
imder present world conditions. Although the United
States apparently acceded to the Soviet demands to
terminate the U-2 flights, it has made pubhc its program
to achieve the same results by orbiting reconnaisance
satellites over Soviet territory.

vu

A central intellectual problem arises when one tries
to think about the status of espionage in the categories
set by the traditional dichotomy between peace and
war. The cold war and the revolution in military tech-
nology make this dichotomy inadequate as a tool of
analysis. Thus the problem of espionage in the con-
temporary world challenges a legal analyst to develop
a new conceptual apparatus that is able to cope with
the transformed character of international relations.

To encourage this development and to take account
of the substantive failure of international law to provide
exphcit norms regulating espionage, especially during
periods of non-belligerency, we devoted the 1960-61
Regional Meeting of the American Society of Interna-
tional Law to the topic of espionage. Professors Quincy
Wright, Julius Stone, and Roland Stanger presented
their papers on May 12, 1961, in the Law School Audi-
torium of the Ohio State University College of Law,
with Dean Robert J. Nordstrom presiding. The well-
attended meeting was enlivened by the rich diversity
of outlook expressed by these distinguished speakers.
These essays concentrate upon the existence and devel-
opment of international legal standards applicable to
aerial espionage performed in the course of the cold
war. This focus follows naturally from progress in space
technology, and particularly from the failure of the U-2
and its imminent, provocative replacement by observa-
tional satellites capable of photographing and observ-
ing the Soviet Union. This subject matter is important
today because it bears directly and ambiguously upon
the hopes for disarmament and the fears of a nuclear

vm

I

surprise attack. Does, for instance, space espionage in-
hibit a Soviet surprise attack or facilitate a United States
surprise attack? This question highlights the urgent
relevance of these new forms of espionage for the peace
and security of mankind.

This was the sixth consecutive year in which the
College of Law has cosponsored a regional meeting of
the American Society of International Law on the cam-
pus of the Ohio State University. As was the case last
year, the 1961 conference and subsequent pubhcation
were made possible by the generous financial support
of the Mershon Center for Education in National Se-
curity. The planning of the conference was greatly
assisted by the continuing co-operation of Robert J.
Nordstrom, chairman of the Mershon Center. As in
prior years, the leadership and participation of Profes-
sor Roland J. Stanger have been indispensable to the
success of all phases of the 1961 regional meeting pro-
gram.

Richard A. Falk

1. Singer, TmiEE Thousand Years of Espionage, vii
(1948).

2. 1 Oppenheim, International Law, § 455 at 862 ( 8th
ed. Lauterpacht ed. 1955).

3. Baxter, So-Called ''Unprivileged Belligerency" — Spies,
Guerrillas, and Saboteurs, 28 Brit. Yb. Int l L. 322, 329-333
(1951); but see ex parte Quirin, 317 U. S. 1 (1942); also
Hyde, Aspects of the Saboteur Cases, 37 Am. I. Int l L. 88,
90(1943).

4. Id. at 329.

IX

5. For survey of Soviet practice, see Dallin, Soviet
Espionage (1955).

6. Wright, Legal Aspects of the U-2 Incident, 54 Am. J.
Intl L. 836 (1960); see also the introductory comment of
Professor Berman in The Trial of the U-2, i-xxx ( 1960).

Contents

Espionage and the Doctrine of Non-intervention
in Internal Affairs

QuiNCY Wright 3

Legal Problems of Espionage in Conditions of
Modem Conflict

Julius Stone 29

Space Espionage and World Order: A Considera-
tion of the Samos-Midas Program

Richard A. Falk 45

Espionage and Arms Control

Roland J. Stanger 83

ESSAYS ON
ESPIONAGE AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

. Espionage and the Doctrine of
Non-Intervention in
Internal Affairs

QuiNCY Wright *

Tv

HE BASIC PRINCIPLE of international law is that
of respect by each sovereign state for the territorial in-
tegrity and political independence of others. This prin-
ciple was generally accepted in Europe after the inex-
pediency of religious war had been demonstrated by
the devastations of the Thirty Years War, and the ax-
iom "Cuius Regio Eius Rehgio" had been accepted as
the basis of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648/ In spite
of renewed eflForts to put ideology ahead of territorial
sovereignty at the time of the French Revolution and
the Russian Revolution, this principle is still accepted in
the United Nations Charter based on the "sovereign
equahty of all its members," requiring abstention from
"the threat or use of force against the territorial in-

* Professor Emeritus of International Law, University of Chicago,
and Professor of Foreign Affairs, University of Virginia.

tegrity or political independence of any state," and pro-
hibiting "intervention in matters which are essentially
within the domestic jurisdiction of any state'' (Article
2). The Latin American states have always accepted
this principle, and the United States joined them in as-
serting it in the Montevideo Convention of 1933 on the
rights and duties of states. All the American states em-
phasized, in this and other inter- American Treaties, the
duty of non-intervention — direct or indirect — in either
the internal or external affairs of other states.^ President
Eisenhower proclaimed it when he said in April,
1953: "Any nation s right to a form of government and
an economic system of its own choosing is inalienable.
Any nation's attempt to dictate to other nations their
form of government is indefensible."^ Prime Minister
Khrushchev accepted this principle when he pro-
claimed the doctrine of peaceful coexistence for all
sovereign states.* Prime Ministers Nehru and Chou
En-lai and the representatives of other Asian and Afri-
can states accepted the Panch Shila at the Bandung
Conference of 1955 calHng for mutual respect, non-
aggression, non-intervention, equality, and peaceful co-
existence.*^

It is clear that intervention, defined as dictatorial in-
terference in the internal or external affairs of another
state, cannot be reconciled with the basic principles of
international law. Intervention invades the territorial
integrity and denies the political independence of an-
other state. However, states that are in continuous and
continually increasing contact with one another, as
means of communication, transportation, and pressure

4

develop with the march of science and technology, find
their interests aflpected by the acts of others and attempt
to influence those acts. They do so by internal develop-
ment of culture, economy, and power; by achievements
in technology, science, hterature, and the arts; by in-
ternational communication utilizing radio, press, popu-
lar periodicals and technical journals; by the travel and
trade of their citizens; and by official utterances, legis-
lative action, and diplomatic correspondence. Interna-
tional law is faced with the issue: When does proper in-
fluence become illegal intervention?

In the definition of intervention, stress has been laid
on the words dictatorial and interference. Persuasion
is said to be legitimate; coercion, dictatorial and ille-
gitimate; but the fine between the two may be vague.
Mihtary invasion is certainly coercive, but what of eco-
nomic embargo, secret infiltration, peremptory diplo-
matic notes, or incitement to subversion by radio? Pub-
lic statements of policy or purpose by a government are
said to be legitimate; subversive or inciting actions by,
or with complicity of, a government within another
state's territory or affecting another state's officials are
considered interference and illegitimate. But here
again the line is not easy to draw. Officially supported
hostihties, assassinations, or incitements; infiltration of
government agencies; bribery of officials; espionage
into official secrets; and other acts within a state's terri-
tory forbidden by its laws — these are doubtless inter-
ference; but what of expressed or implied threats in
pubhc pronouncements of policy by a government?
What of the publications, speeches, and conversations

of an inciting character by foreign travelers? What of
observations and reports by diplomatic attaches and
citizens instructed by another government? The Su-
preme Court of the United States has found it difficult
to distinguish legitimate uses of the freedom of speech
and press from seditious, subversive, libelous, or incit-
ing utterances or expositions.^

While it is difficult to distinguish dictatorial inter-
ferences from proper influence and exposition, it is
even more difficult to distinguish the internal affairs
and foreign policy of a state from its acts or utterances
which so affect the rights and interests of another state
that they can be regarded as of international concern,
and as justifying interference, even dictatorial inter-
ference, by the state affected.

A state can undoubtedly protest acts which it deems
in violation of its rights and can make representations
or even resort to economic retorsions against acts it
deems adverse to its interests. It can go further and
conduct reprisals not involving the use of armed force
to rectify injuries arising from violation of its rights, if
the available peaceful means of adjustment or repara-
tion have been exhausted without results, and the
means of reprisal are no more serious than the injury
complained of. Finally, a state can use armed force to
defend its territory or armed forces against armed at-
tack, to assist others that are victims of such attack, or
to assist the United Nations "to maintain or restore in-
ternational peace and security" in case of "threat to the
peace, breach of the peace, or acts of aggression" or
to enforce a judgment of the International Court of

6

Justice. But difficulties of precise definitions again rise.
Can a state initiate reprisals on the basis of its own
judgment that it has suflFered from a breach of interna-
tional law? How can it be determined that reprisal
measures are, in fact, designed to rectify wrongs? Who
determines when peaceful remedies have been ex-
hausted? By what criteria can the relative seriousness
of the initial injury and the reprisal measures be deter-
mined? Can defensive measures be taken preventively
in case of immediate threat of invasion? Can they be
taken to protect citizens abroad in danger of their lives?
How does the United Nations determine when civil
strife threatens international peace? Under what cir-
cumstances can the United Nations intervene to protect
the *Tiuman rights" of the nationals of a state or secure
the "self-determination" of a colony? May states inter-
vene for such humanitarian purposes if another state in
its internal administration is guilty of atrocities which
"shock the conscience of mankind"?

These questions raise issues requiring careful analy-
sis if the broad principles of international law are to be
applicable in practice.^

Some writers have been so impressed by the circum-
stances which seem to justify intervention that they
have elevated "intervention" into a normal procedure
of international law to rectify wrongdoing. Thus Sto-
well, in a comprehensive study of the question, con-
cludes that "intervention in the relations between states
is the rightful use of force, or the reliance thereon, to
constrain obedience to international law." Though rec-
ognizing the serious effect of intervention, in that "it

leaves the weak without the means to bring the strong
transgressor to justice," he is convinced that interna-
tional law must depend mainly upon "the action of the
separate states to secure redress for their own inju-
ries/' ^ While this point of view may have had some jus-
tification in an earlier stage of international law, it is
clearly contrary to the United Nations Charter, which
seeks to abolish forcible self-help in international rela-
tions except in individual or collective self-defense
against armed attack, and relegates other law enforce-
ment activities to collective action through the United
Natio^js.^

Others, instead of attempting to justify intervention
under international law, conclude that international
law is not applicable at all in time of cold war. Cold
war, they say, is more like hot war than like peace, and
traditional international law has permitted each bellig-
erent during a state of war to invade and occupy the
territory of its enemy, to destroy its armies, to subvert
its government, to incite its population, to establish
blockades and other economic coercions, to carry on
propaganda and intimidation, and, in general, to pay
no respect to the territorial integrity or political inde-
pendence of its enemy /^

Others go further and say that law has no applicabil-
ity to international affairs under any circumstances.
International law they consider an illusion, declaring
that international relations are relations of power in
which expediency is the only guide.

If such positions are taken, the question posed by the
title of this paper is irrelevant. We shall, therefore, as-

8

sume that there is a "doctrine of non-intervention,**
that it is a legal doctrine, that a state of war does not
exist between the United States and the Soviet Union,
and that the subject under discussion is the lawfulness
of espionage on these assumptions.

We must first be clear about the sources of interna-
tional law. Attitudes toward that law may be divided
according as people consider themselves "realists" as-
serting that the immediate material state of a£Fairs can-
not be changed by ideas but only by force, or as "ideal-
ists" asserting that ideas and values can, in time, greatly
influence present material conditions, that men and
governments act from beliefs, not from capabilities,
and that wars are made in the minds of men, not in
technological equipment."

A balance between these two positions has been
maintained by most international lawyers. Law differs
from sociology in that it formulates the values, not the
behavior, of the community. The two are related be-
cause behavior provides some evidence of values, and
values influence behavior; but the two are not identical.
The behavior of some members of a community at most
times, and of most at some times, may be contrary to
the generally accepted values of the community. Jural
law, therefore, differs from sociological law in that it
may be violated. Practice gives evidence of law only
when it manifests custom, reflecting a subjective sense
of right or obligation. In conformity with this general
conception, international law reflects not the values of
one nation, but the consensus of values which all na-
tions profess. Because of the decentralized character

9

of the society of nations, the consequent imperfection
of the sanctions of international law, and the absence
of an international legislative authority, international
law is closer to behavior than are most systems of mu-
nicipal law. Nevertheless, we must assume that it is law
and that, to discover its rules, we must seek the values
which states generally accept, and give weight to their
practices only insofar as they provide evidence of that
acceptance.

The statute of the International Court of Justice de-
clares that the court, to decide cases in accordance
with international law, shall apply:

(a) international conventions, whether general or

Particular, establishing rules expressly recognized
y the contesting states; (b) international custom,
as evidence of a general practice accepted as law;
(c) the general principles of law recognized by
civilized nations; (d) . . . judicial decisions and
the teachings of the most highly qualified pub-
licists of the various nations, as subsidiary means
for the determination of rules of law ( Article 38 ) .

The use of the words recognized and accepted in
this formulation emphasizes the importance of the sub-
jective factor in appraising the value of material evi-
dences of the law in conventions, practices, principles,
precedents, and commentaries.

What is the status of peacetime espionage in accord
with these sources? Very little has been said about it
in the books. Espionage is a term of art in the law of
war. The Hague Convention of 1907 on the laws and
customs of war on land says:

10

An individual can only be considered a spy
when, acting clandestinely, or on false pretenses, he
obtains, or endeavors to obtain, information in the
zone of operations of a belligerent with the inten-
tion of communicating it to the hostile party.

Thus, soldiers not wearing a disguise, who have
penetrated into the zone of operations of a hostile
army for the purpose of obtaining information, are
not considered spies. Similarly, the following are
not considered spies: soldiers and civilians, carry-
ing out their mission openly, intrusted with the de-
livery of dispatches intended either for their own
army or for the enemy's army. To this class belong
likewise persons sent in balloons for the purpose of
delivering dispatches, and, generally, of maintain-
ing communications between the different parts of
an army or a territory.

A spy, taken in the act, shall not be punished
without previous trial.

A spy who, after rejoining the army to which he
belongs, is subsequently captured by the enemy, is
treated as a prisoner of war, and incurs no respon-
sibility for his previous acts of espionage ( Articles
29-31).

Text writers generally recognize that while a spy, if
captured in the act, can be executed after trial, his
activities are not dishonorable, his government is not
violating law in sending him, and his act is not, there-
fore, a war crime. Espionage is a legitimate belHgerent
operation peculiar in that it involves considerable risk
to the spy, but the same is true to a somewhat lesser
degree of soldiers who engage in normal belligerent
operations.

Espionage, the essence of which is the clandestine
character of the activity and the false pretenses or dis-

11

guise of the individual who engages in it, is to be dis-
tinguished from observation by a scout in uniform or
from reconnaissance by an aviator, under cover of
darkness or distance, but not in secret, under false pre-
tenses, or in disguise. The scout or the aviator, if cap-
tured, are entitled to the normal treatment of prisoners
of war.

The legitimacy of espionage in time of war arises
from the absence of any general obligation of belliger-
ents to respect the territory or government of the enemy
state, and from the lack of any specific convention
against it. The deception involved resembles that in
stratagems or ruses de guerre and differs from violations
of specific conventions hke those of the flag of truce,
red cross emblems, and armistices, all of which consti-
tute 'perfidy*' and are forbidden by the law of war.

In time of peace, however, espionage and, in fact,
any penetration of the territory of a state by agents of
another state in violation of the local law, is also a viola-
tion of the rule of international law imposing a duty
upon states to respect the territorial integrity and politi-
cal independence of other states. Each state has the
right to make and enforce law within its territory, ex-
cept insofar as it is under positive obfigations of inter-
national law, such as those to respect the immunities of
diplomatic oflBcers, foreign warships, foreign forces,
and other foreign agencies which it has permitted in its
territory; to permit innocent passage of foreign vessels
in its territorial waters; not to deny justice to aliens
whom it has admitted to its territory; and to observe
treaties which it has ratified .JThere is no rule-ofintema-

12

tional law which forbids a state to punish individuals
who seek to obtain classified documents, who penetrate
forbidden areas, who fly over its territory without per-
mission, or who engage in seditious or other activities
which it has made illegal. It belongs to each state to
define peacetime espionage, sedition, subversion, sabo-
tage, incitement, and conspiracy as it sees fit, and it is
the duty of other states to respect such exercise of
domestic jurisdiction. Thus any act by an agent of one
state committed in another state's territory, contrary
to the laws of the latter, constitutes intervention, pro-
vided those laws are not contrary to the state's inter-
national obligations. Intervention by unlawful acts in
another state's territory may be divided into direct or
open intervention, such as armed invasion, and indirect
or subversive intervention involving secret activity.
Since the government responsible for the latter type of
action seldom acknowledges its responsibiHty but al-
lows the agent, if caught, to be punished without pro-
test, such incidents are not usually the subject of in-
ternational discussion. Numerous communist spies,
saboteurs, or other agents have been detected and
punished in Western countries, but the commimist
government responsible for sending them has never
interfered unless the individual was a diplomatic per-
sonage. In this case it has claimed diplomatic immunity
for the individual, and if that claim is acknowledged,
the individual is not punished but declared persona non
grata and required to leave the country. In such cases
the official character of the individual is known, and the
incident usually results in an official protest to the send-

13

ing state by the receiving state. The peculiarity of the
U-2 incident of May 1, 1960, was the acknowledgment
of responsibility by President Eisenhower, which clearly
gave the Soviet Union grounds for oflBcial protest. There
can be no doubt of the competence of the Soviet Union
to deal with the aviator, Francis Powers, in accord with
its own laws. Although Powers was an agent of the
United States government, he was not lawfully within
Soviet territory, and so was not entitled to any im-
munity under international law.^^ The immunity claimed
by Great Britain for Alexander McLeod in the Caroline
incident of 1838 arose from the fact that McLeod was
not only a soldier acting under British orders, but also
lawfully within American territory, because the inva-
sion was justified by the necessity for self-defense."
Intervention, however, goes beyond action by one
state in the territory of another. Governments are
obliged to refrain from inciting propaganda, libelous
utterances, or other acts intended to upset the govern-
ment of another state. It would appear that the procla-
mation by the President of the United States of "Captive
Nations Week," under authority of an act of Congress,
was of this character,^* as was the President's statement
of sympathy for rebels seeking to upset the government
of President Castro in Cuba.^^ It is within the domestic
jurisdiction of each state to establish its government by
its own internal processes and to change that govern-
ment, whether by peaceful or violent means. Each state
enjoys the "right of revolution" so long as the exercise
of that right by its people does not threaten the peace
and security of other states. Consequently, official acts

14

of other governments assisting rebels, or interfering in
behalf of either a recognized government or the insur-
gents in time of civil strife, constitutes forbidden inter-
vention. This is expressly recognized by the inter-
American convention of 1928 on Civil Strife.^®

Free governments have held that, while official acts
of the kind described constitute illegal intervention,
this is not true of private acts w^ithin their territory.
They consider themselves under no obligation to pre-
vent propaganda hostile to foreign governments by
private individuals in their territory. Such activities
they consider within the proper guarantees of freedom
of speech and press. Autocratic governments, on the
other hand, have often censored such activities within
their territory and have attempted to gain recognition
of an international duty of other governments to do
likewise. There have indeed been international con-
ventions requiring censorship of radio communications
of subversive character, and punishment of acts of ter-
rorism against foreign governments. It is also true that
governments are obliged to exercise due diligence to
prevent mihtary expeditions from leaving their territory
to operate against other governments. Failure in this
regard, as well as launching of official mihtary expedi-
tions, constitutes aggression, which is exphcitly for-
bidden by the United Nations Charter. The United
States may have been guilty of such want of due dili-
gence in the Cuban incident of April, 1961. In general,
however, there appears to be a distinction between
hostile acts by a government and hostile acts by a pri-
vate individual. The latter do not constitute interven-

15

tion unless there has been government complicity or, in
the case of military action, government negligence.

The problem of negligence is closely related to the sic
utere tuo rule, which imposes liabihty upon a state for
incidents in its territory injurious to another state, such
as the use of river waters by an upper riparian in such a
way as to deprive the lower riparian of a fair share of
the stream, the operation of a factory which sends
noxious fumes across the border, or the launching of a
satellite or missile which falls in another state and
causes serious damage to the latter. In such cases lia-
bihty may go beyond that for willful act or even negh-
gence and exist without fault. The responsibility arises
from the inherently dangerous character of the activity.

In view of these general rules of international law,
are there any special conditions justifying peacetime
espionage? Efforts have been made to justify such ac-
tion by the United States in the Soviet Union because
of:l (1) a general practice of espionage by all states,
(2) the necessity for self-defense, (3) the necessity to
maintain the balance of power, (4) the unreasonable-
ness of Soviet objection in view of its own espionage
activities, and ( 5 ) the virtue of espionage or other types
of intervention against communism/ Consideration will
be given to each of these alleged justifications.

1. Although very few writers on international law
have discussed peacetime espionage, the well-known
British jurist, Lassa Oppenheim, writes as follows:

Spies are secret agents of a state sent abroad for
the purpose of obtaining clandestinely information

16

in regard to military or political secrets. Although
all states constantly or occasionally send spies
abroad, and although it is not considered wrong
morally, pohtically, or legally to do so, such agents
have, of course, no recognized position whatever
according to international law, since they are not
agents of states for their international relations.
Every state punishes them severely when they are
caught committing an act which is a crime by the
law of the land, or expels them if they cannot be
punished. A spy cannot be legally excused by
pleading that he only executed the orders of his
government and the latter will never interfere,
since it cannot oflBcially confess to having commis-
sioned a spy."

The suggestion that, because of the frequency of the
practice, sending spies is not "legally'* wrong seems to
be contradicted by the last part of this quotation. Why
cannot a government "officially confess to having com-
missioned a spy," unless it is legally wrong? This
would appear to be a case in which frequent practice
has not estabhshed a rule of law because the practice is
accompanied not by a sense of right but by a sense of
wrong.

2. After the U-2 incident, the United States sought to
defend itself by asserting that such activity was neces-
sary for self-defense. The United States, as an open
society, presents every opportunity to the Soviet Union
to detect any preparations for surprise attack, but in the
closed society of the Soviet Union, the United States
had to utiHze aerial espionage for this purpose, espe-
cially after the Soviet Union had refused to accept the
"open skies" proposal made by President Eisenhower

17

in the Summit Conference of 1955. President Eisen-
hower said in reference to the U-2: "No one wants
another Pearl Harbor," and Secretary of State Herter
said:

It is unacceptable that the Soviet political system
should be given the opportunity to make secret
preparations to face the free world with the choice
of abject surrender or nuclear destruction. The
Government of the United States would be derehct
to its responsibihty, not only to the American
people, but to free peoples everywhere if it did not,
in the absence of Soviet cooperation, take such
measures as are possible unilaterally to lessen and
to overcome this danger of surprise attack.^®

International law, however, permits mihtary self-
defense only in case of armed attack or at least
immediate threat of armed attack. The danger appre-
hended by the United States flowed from an interpreta-
tion of Soviet pohcy and intent, not from an immediate
threat of attack. Furthermore, if the United States
planned no first strike with nuclear weapons, as it has
repeatedly asserted, it is difficult to see what direct
defense value there would be in aerial observations.
Although they might add to the effectiveness of a
second strike, the information so gained, if it remained
secret, would not have deterrent value.

American courts have held that a single individual
with a military purpose, such as espionage or observa-
tion from aircraft, may constitute a "military expedi-
tion or enterprise** punishable under United States
criminal law, if he proceeds from American territory

18

with the intent to enter foreign territory.^® While a re-
connaissance plane may carry a bomb of great destruc-
tive power, and its overflight may therefore be re-
garded as an armed attack by the state overflown, it
seems doubtful whether the dispatch of such a plane,
when not actually armed but intended merely for re-
connaissance, can be regarded as an act of aggression.
It is, however, an act of intervention, and cannot be
justified on grounds of self-defense except in response
to an actual attack or immediate threat of armed at-
tack.^^

3. George Schwarzenberger writes in an article en-
titled "Hegemonial Intervention":

While the nuclear stalemate between the world-
camps lasts, each side may claim with a greater or
lesser degree of justice that, by keeping its own
strength unimpaired, it makes its own indispen-
sable contribution to the maintenance of world
peace. Thus, in the minds of the world-camp direc-
tors and their publicity departments, intervention
for the purpose of maintaining the status quo in the
relative strength of the two camps is easily equated
with serving the interests of world peace. ^^

However, he regards this argument as political rather
than legal, recognizing that justification cannot be
found in international law or the United Nations Char-
ter, and that 'Tiowever circumspectly handled, hege-
monial intervention is always an instrument of interna-
tional pohtics that involves taking calculated risks." He
thus appears to. endorse the well-known position of Sir
Vernon Harcourt that "intervention is a high and sum-

19

mary procedure which may sometimes snatch a remedy
beyond the reach of law. ... Its essence is illegahty,
its justification is its success.'' ^^

4. Ambassador Lodge and Secretary Herter sought to
justify the U-2 flight on the ground that the Soviet gov-
ernment was engaged in espionage on an even larger
scale than the United States. Ambassador Lodge cited
eleven cases in which Soviet spies had been unmasked
in the United States since the death of Stalin, and said
that there had been 360 convictions of Russian espio-
nage agents in courts of free-world countries, and that
these represented only a minor proportion of the cases
in which Soviet espionage activities had been actually
involved. ^^ This tu quoque argument has had a certain
recognition in the equitable principle of "clean hands,"
'*he who seeks equity must do equity." Judge Manley O.
Hudson invoked this principle in his opinion in the
River Meuse Case in the International Court of Justice,
defining it as follows:

Where two parties have assumed an identical re-
ciprocal obligation, one party which is engaged in
a continuous non-performance of the obligation
should not be permitted to take advantage of a
similar non-performance of the obligation by the
other party.^*

While this equitable principle is not normally appli-
cable in criminal law, the Nuremburg Tribunal refused
to proceed with indictments against Admirals Raeder
and Doenitz, accused of ordering the sinking of mer-
chant vessels by submarines at sight, after evidence had

20

indicated that British and American Naval authorities
had done the same thing during World War II. In the
particular incident of the U-2, the Soviet representative,
Gromyko, sought to refute this argument by implying
that ordinary espionage and aerial reconnaissance are
so diflFerent that this "clean hands" principle did not
apply. It is clear that the nature and gravity of delin-
quencies must be similar, if not identical, to justify in-
vocation of this principle. An over-flying plane is more
capable of carrying a bomb of great destructiveness
than is an ordinary secret agent. The United States,
while calling attention to reconnaissance by Russian
ships and espionage by agents, did not assert any cases
of Soviet aerial reconnaissance, although it subse-
quently disclosed that a Soviet diplomatic officer had
hired an American aviator to photograph strategic bases
in the United States. In principle, all peacetime espio-
nage in foreign territory is illegal; but when all are en-
gaging in it, it seems unreasonable to single out one
state for utilizing a particular form of espionage, even
though that form carries possibihties of hostile action
going beyond espionage. The difference should not be
exaggerated. Although a reconnaissance airplane may
carry bombs, a secret agent may plant a bomb and en-
gage in various forms of sabotage. Therefore, while
this argument is of somewhat doubtful legal value, it
undoubtedly has much moral cogency.

The value of the argument may be even greater
when third states are involved. Richard Falk, referring
to the Spanish Civil War, proposes a rule "that inter-
ventionary contacts, once estabhshed, invite other

21

states to counter-intervene, at least to an oflFsetting de-
gree." " If, as illustrated in the Spanish Civil War, states
favorable to one side observe the rule of non-interven-
tion in civil strife, and those favorable to the other side
do not, the latter is likely to win. It should be noticed,
however, that such counter-intervention tends to de-
velop the civil strife into general international war. For
this reason, the Charter permits intervention only by
the United Nations in such circumstances and the
United Nations has called upon all states not to inter-
vene, as illustrated in the Security Council's Resolution
of February, 1961, in the Congo situation. This situation
suggests the value of the rule of international law
forbidding intervention in civil strife by states individu-
ally. As Falk points out, "considerations influencing
action by an international organization are quite dif-
ferent from those that should be available to a single
state." ''

Under present circumstances, it does not appear that
a general rule justifying counter-intervention is expedi-
ent. Rather, action should be taken through the United
Nations to terminate the original intervention.

5. Richard Falk further points out that "the oflBcial
United States view is to regard the Caracas Resolution
as a revival of the Monroe Doctrine, shifted from a
unilateral to a multilateral axis, and directed against
Communism rather than Colonialism."" After noting
policies in sections of the world other than Latin Amer-
ica, he concludes: "The United States* recognition prac-
tice tends to be as interventionary as possible whenever
Cold War issues are involved." ^® There can be no doubt

22

that these statements are borne out by the Caracas and
other Latin American declarations against communism,
the Truman and Eisenhower Doctrines, the fact that
the United States limits seato interventions to those
against communism, and the non-recognition of main-
land China, North Korea, North Vietnam, and East
Germany. They are, however, statements of American
poHcy and not of international law. The United Nations
Charter recognizes the sovereign equahty of all mem-
bers, whatever their ideologies. Thus it does not appear
that espionage or any other form of intervention can be
legally justified on the ground that it is carried on as
part of a crusade against communism.

Even as a policy, the suggestion that communism,
which now governs over one-third of the human popu-
lation, is a doctrine so wicked that illegal means can be
used against it is difficult to support. Such a pohcy
resembles those which supported continuous hostility
between Christendom and Islam in the Middle Ages,
between Cathohcism and Protestantism for a century
before the Peace of Westphalia, and between absolute
monarchs and the principles of the American and
French Revolutions in the late eighteenth century.
Modern international law and the United Nations
Charter have attempted to prevent exactly such poHcies,
which could be in the future as they have been in the
past, a major cause of universal war.

It therefore seems that in the modem world, even
more than in the earher periods mentioned, ideological
war ought to be avoided. The question of which ide-
ology is the best for a given people cannot be settled by

23

outside intervention but only by the people involved,
through revolutionary action or, preferably, by discus-
sion in a free forum of public opinion. For the world as
a whole, such a free forum may be diflBcult to achieve,
but to achieve it should be the object of states, as it is
of the United Nations. To this end, the rule of inter-
national law, requiring mutual respect by states for the
territorial integrity and poHtical independence of other
states, should be observed. Illegal intervention should
be condemned, and, where it occurs, collective action
through the United Nations, or, in the Americas,
through the Organization of American States, should
be sought.

Such a policy is particularly important for democra-
cies because both experience and analysis show that in
a competition for power, particularly in using subver-
sive methods, dictatorships have great advantages.
They can act rapidly, secretly, and effectively. They can
divert resources away from the production of consumer
goods to the building of power. They can respond to
requests for assistance by underdeveloped countries
immediately, without congressional debate and with-
out apparent political strings. In the present world, the
communist powers have the advantage of interior lines
and can threaten, mobihze or attack successively at dif-
ferent points on their long periphery. Because of these
advantages, manifested in the continuous increase of
the relative power of the commimist states since World
War II, these states are not eager to accept the rule of
law.*® Yet Khrushchev's demand for peaceful coexist-
ence and competition may be genuine. He probably

24

does not want nuclear war, which would destroy the
fruits of Soviet economic development. His people
clearly do not want the suflFering of another world war.
He may believe that his model will eventually prove
acceptable to the poor people of Asia, Africa, and Latin
America, and even to the West, without the support of
mihtary aggression or subversive intervention. If he be-
lieves, as Walter Lippmann says he does, in the inevi-
table triumph of communism in the deterministic march
of history, he may not want to run the risk that such
methods will eventuate in war. Finally, he may fear
that in a general war, whatever might happen to the
Western world, China, rather than Russia, would
emerge as the leader of the communist world.

It would appear, therefore, that, diflBcult as may be
the task, maintenance of the rule of international law
against intervention of any kind may not be impossible.
The West would certainly gain by a world in which
states competed in a forum of opinion stabilized by law
and in which each could present the values of its model
of social, economic, and political organization for others
to imitate. In such a world, democracy would have a
fair chance to survive. Its survival is doubtful in a jun-
gle world which places a premium on skills in subver-
sion, infiltration, espionage, guerrilla warfare, nibbling
aggression, and other forms of intervention in which
totahtarian dictatorships have so great an advantage.
Deciding what steps can be taken to "make the world
safe for democracy'' requires study, less in the tech-
nology of deterrence than in the psychology of tension
reduction. By avoiding interventions themselves and

25

utilizing international organizations to frustrate inter-
ventions by others, by pursuing policies of defense
without provocation, and conciliation without appease-
ment, democracies may win confidence in their peace-
ful intentions in the uncommitted and even in the
communist world. An atmosphere favorable to arma-
ment negotiation may emerge and the peace of mutual
terror may in time give way to a peace of mutual
confidence that law will be respected.

There can be no guarantee that this will happen. The
hope that it may rests on the belief that people individu-
ally, in the long run, prefer survival and freedom to
ideological allegiance, and that peoples collectively
prefer self-determination and prosperity to domination.
The alternative of continual competition in arms, prop-
aganda, subversion, and espionage between free de-
mocracies and totahtarian autocracies seems almost
certain, in the atomic age, to spell the end of democracy,
if not of humanity.

1. Wright, International Law and Ideologies, 48 Am.
J. Int L L. 616 ff. (Oct. 1954).

2. International Legislation (Hudson ed. ), Vol. 4,
p. 2418, Vol. 6, pp. 450, 623, 628, Vol. 7, p. 578; Am. J.
Intl L., Vol. 46, p. 46 (Supp. 1952), Vol. 48, p. 123 (Supp.
July 1954); Wright, Intervention and Cuba in 1961, in
Proceedings of the American Society of International
Law (1961) p. 2.

3. 28 Dept State Bull. 599 (1953).

4. 38 Foreign Affairs 3flF. (1959).

5. Wright, Asian Experience and International Law, in 1
International Studies 85 (Indian School of International
Studies, July 1959).

26

6. Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494 (1951);
Pritchett, Civil Liberties and the Vinson Court 71 ff.
(University of Chicago Press, 1954).

7. Wright, The Prevention of Aggression, 50 Am. J.
Int'l L. 526 (July 1956).

8. Stov^^ll, Intervention in International Law vi, 46
(Washington, D.C., John Byrne, 1921); International
Law 72 (N. Y., Henry Holt, 1931).

9. Julius Stone attempts to interpret the United Nations
Charter so as to permit military reprisals, such as those
undertaken by Great Britain and France at Suez in 1956
and condemned by the United Nations. See Aggression
AND World Order (New York, 1958).

10. George Sokolsky, in a column in the Washington
Post, May 10, 1961, writes: "The time is rapidly coming
when the United States will weary of such semantic ex-
pressions as Cold War and will recognize that war has many
difiFerent devices and that World War II never ended but
has continued in different forms." He overlooks the fact
that in World War II the Soviet Union was an aUy, not an
enemy of the United States.

11. The meanings of the terms "realism" and "ideahsm"
are highly controversial. See Wright, Realism and Idealism
in International Politics, 5 World Politics 116 ff.

12. Wright, Legal Aspects of the U-2 Incident, 54 Am.
J. Intl L. 836 ff. (Oct. 1960).

13. Moore, International Law Digest, Vol. 2, p.
409 ff.. Vol. 6, pp. 261, 1014.

14. Wright, Subversive Intervention, 54 Am. J. Intl L.
521 ff. (July 1960).

15. Wright, Intervention and Cuba in 1961, Proceed-
ings OF the American Society of International Law
(1961) p. 2.

16. 4 International Legislation 2418 (Hudson ed.).

17. Oppenheim, 1 International Law, § 455 (Lon-
don, Longmans, 3d ed. 1920).

18. 42 Dep't State BuU. 816 (1960).

27

19. United States v. Sander, 241 Fed. 417, 419 (1917);
Hackworth, 7 International Law Digest 399.

20. Wright, Legal Aspects of the U-2 Incident, 54 Am.
J. Intl L. 846.

21. Schwarzenberger, Hegenwnial Intervention, 12 Year
Bcx)K OF World Affairs 261 (London Institute, 1959).

22. "HiSTORicus," Letters on Some Questions of Inter-
national Law 41 (London, 1863).

23. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., in United Na-
tions Security Council. See Wright, Legal Aspects of the
U-2 Incident, 54 Am. J. Intl L. 847, 851.

24. P.C.I.J., ser A/B No. 70, p. 77; 4 World Court Re-
ports 232 (Hudson ed.).

25. Falk, The United States and the Doctrine of Non-
intervention in the Internal Affairs of Independent States,
5 How. L. J. 169 (June 1959).

26. Id. at 170.

27. Id. at 182.

28. Id. at 185.

29. A. Ravenholt, an experienced reporter in southeast
Asia, after pointing out some "obvious disasters" of United
States "covert operations" in that area and the hkehhood of
further mistakes because they are "built into the system,"
concludes: **While many of these difficulties may be the
United States' growing pains in a new dimension of the
world struggle, still unanswered is the question of the role
and management of such secret activity by a democracy."
Washington Post, May 10, 1961.

28

Legal Problems of Espionage in
Conditions of Modern Conflict

Julius Stone *

M

R. CHAIRMAN, let me thank you for your kind
words and say how grateful I am for the opportunity
of being here with you again. May I also thank my
friend Quincy Wright for his very moving address with
so little of the drive of which I found myself in agree-
ment. I wish, Mr. Chairman, that you hadn t given me
any advance subject at all. I could then have con-
centrated on delivering a full bill of particulars as to
the respects in which I find myself in disagreement ( of
course with great trepidation) with this very distin-
guished American international lawyer. Or perhaps it
is fortunate, nevertheless, that you gave me other direc-
tives so that I cannot really attempt to say what I know
it is my duty through you to say to Quincy Wright. And,

* Challis Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence, Uni-
versity of Sydney, Australia.

of course, it is entirely beyond my powers to showjbow
completely wrong on the basic matter he really is.

Listening to him did, indeed, leave me thinking
about my favorite young lady from Melbourne. Mel-
bourne is a very much primmer city, Mr. Chairman,
than Sydney. Young ladies are well brought up, with
the proper restraints, and this young lady was brought
up in a very fine family, who lived in a veryexcellent
home in very beautiful grounds. Her bedroom led out
through French doors onto a lovely lawn; and one
morning as she slept there a dark and very handsome
stranger came in through the French windows with-
out saying a word. She was startled, of course, and was
awakened by his arrival. He came up to her bedside,
turned back the bedclothes, lifted her in his arms,
strolled with purposeful determination out through the
French windows, across the lawn, moved over to the
banks of the Yarra that were beautiful at that point,
and laid her down gently oii_±he-green sward. And
meanwhile she was, of course, completely dumb-
founded with fear and terror; only when he had laid
her down was she able to marshal a few words. She then
said with bated breath — and this is the dramatic mo-
ment which Professor Wright's whole address brought
back to me — she stammered and said "A-a-and what
are you going to do now?*' And the dark handsome
stranger looked straight at her as he spoke his first
words. And he said "Lady, it's your dream I**

I therefore must address myself to a much narrower
topic within the limits of time that I have. This is the
question, What sense are we to make in terms of human

30

survival of the main positions in the controversy con-
cerning the U-2? And I would like you, if you would, to \
approach this withjne^ the hght of reasoiTas applied 1
to our whole present situation, and not just in terms of
th'e'diplomatic and propaganda situation that arose
after the U-2 incident, partly resulting frpm^rtain.dif:__
ficulties and ineptitudes of the United States adminis-
tration in dealing with it. I would like us rather to ad-
dress our minds to the import of aerial espionage, and
also along with this of espionage from outer space; to
that import for the common interest of both sides in the
present power struggle. I want to put before you a view /
of espionage which transcends that of traditional inter-
national law. Not that international law leaves no room
for this view; on the contrary it leaves plenty of room
for it. But the traditional law has never addressed it-
self to this aspect, because the two-scorpions-in-a-bottle
situation of our day produces a context for theopera-
tionoif'espionage in the coTmnon interest Qjrhothjjdes
^^Hch has never existed_b£fQre.

This is what I want us to concentrate on, to see if we
can detect, in default of the achievement of an interna-
tional system of inspection, some possibility of what I
might call reciprocally tolerated espionage. This would
be only second best, of course, to the assurances against
surprise attack which could be provided by an ^ee-
ment for international inspection, the matter on whfchi,^^
I understand, my friend Roland Stanger is going tp '
speak shortly.

Now on the basis of the facts finally admitted by the
United States, ladies and gentlemen, the charge that

31

the United States violated international law in the U-2
incident must rest, it seems to me, on one or other, or
both, of two grounds. It is rather important, however,
to distinguish these grounds from each other. One is
the ground of territorial intrusion — ^flight over the air
space of the Soviet Union; the other is the ground of
espionage, and of course a main drive of Professor
Wright's paper has been that espionage as such is illegal
in peacetime. Now, I don't want to make any question,
nor did the United States Government, that there was a
violation of international law in the U-2 case in respect
of the territorial intrusion. There is no debate about
this. What is debatable is why, in view of the fact that
territorial intrusions by one state on the territory of
another state are not uncommon, and give rise usually
only to a minor commotion, this particular intrusion
gave rise to so great a crisis, and why even friends of
this country, and some of its own leaders of thought like
my fellow guest here today, have taken such a grave
view of the action of the American government. The
mere naughtiness of a territorial intrusion_dQesjQOtjex-
plain~~all this.

The second possible ground then is that which Pro-
fessor Wright seems to pinpoint for you today, namely,
the ground that espionage as such in peacetime is illegal
in international law. This is how I have understood Pro-
fessor Wright's article in the American Journal of Inter-
national Law on the U-2 incident.^ And this is how I
understood him this afternoon. Perhaps if I am migun-
ctgrstanding^im, he will^orrgctjTne. But I ao wish to
say that if he is separating out peacetime espionage as

32

itseK an international delinquency of the state permit-
ting it, even if there is no illegal territorial intrusion,
then I must register an almost complete dissent from
his view. I find no support for such a view except per-
haps some dicta in ex parte Quirin,^ and in the Dutch
case, re Flesche; ^ and these are far from decisive of so
important a question. I find no support for it in the
practice of states. For example I find no attempts of
aggrieved states, after the spying state has disowned
its spy, to shift home responsibility for the espionage to
the spying state; yet surely if espionage were a state
dehnquency in itself the aggrieved state would not al-
ways have been content to take such disclaimers at their
face value.

I throw in as seeming to me to contradict such a view
that, according to the principle stated in the Lotus
Case* it is for those who assert the existence of a rule of
law restricting state activity to show that such a restric-
tive rule exists. And in any case it is not a self^gYideDily
sound approach to the newish problems of peacetime
espionage to assume that it must be unlawful unless it
can be justified on some specific grounds. In face of a
situation of such rapid technological, strategic, and
psychological change it seems to ilie to be particularly
important rather to approach the matter by asking
whether there are any principles, manifesMnjJie prao-
tice of states, which evidence any existing restrictive
rules, or any suflBciently close analogies. With the great-
est respect, I can at present find none. There are, of
course7"alot of cases to which Professor Wright refers
concerning territorial intrusions, concerning the exer-

33

cise by one state's officers of governmental functions on
the territory of another state, Hke Hberating prisoners
from jails, or cases of diplomats abusing their privileges
and immunities by engaging in espionage. In such
cases, however, the delinquency arises, in my submis-
sion, not from the espionage but from the collateral
illegahty.

Nor, ladies and gentlemen, isthis a merequibble
between lawyers. For in the^uture which is before us
the cases^^r espionage where there is no collateral
illegahty are the very cases likely to be most vital for
the future of mankind. Because, with satellites like
Midas, and other technical developments, we are ap-
proaching a situation in which the military reconnais-
sance function can be exercised from outer space or
from the periphery of territorial waters, and there will
be no collateral illegality involved in the major spying
activities. At this point, the question that Professor
Wright is either leaving ambiguous or is resolving too
confidently against the legality of peacetime espionage
as such (and on which I dissent) will become a very
crucial one. It is whether, a^artftomcollatgral illegahty
— there being for example no territorial intrusion when
you're in outer space — espionage is a dehnquency of
the state which engages in it. My respectful submis-
sion, Mr. Chairman, is that as the law now stands, there
is no sufficient warrant for saying that international law
does not permit state-authorized espionage in peace-
time.

I am, of course, with Professor Wright in saying that
clearly no such state dehnquency is involved in wartime

34

espionage. The main effect of such espionage is that it
places the individual in a legally exposed position, as it
were, without the protection of his own state, to the
legal measures of the aggrieved state. Professor Wright
recognizes that there is no state delinquency in war-
time relations, and I am adding the footnote that I also
believe that there is no state dehnquency in peacetime
relations, if no collateral illegality such as intrusion on
territory is involved. If, as I think, there is here an
absence of any prohibitive rule, what is left for us to
consider (and no doubt we ought to consider it) is
whether there should be a rule prohibiting such peace-
time espionage.

This is a question of how the law should be changed
or developed. And before we begin or even try to an-
swer this kind of question we must bring to reacknowl-
edgment (for you all know these things of which I am
now going to speak) some of the elements of the dy-
namic change in which the law of espionage, such as it
is, now has to operate. We may thus bring into the
matrix, or backdrop, of this branch of the law, reahties
which have never before been operative upon it, and
which may therefore radically influence our outlook on
the part of the law of espionage which still has to be
worked out.

There have been, for example, within the time of
even the youngest damsel among you, most drastic
changes of a psychological nature affecting the cen-
ters of international decision-making, whether in Mos-
cow, in Washington, or in other capitals. The most
drastic of these is that there is a common interest in all

35

of them in avoiding the use of nuclear weapons; and
this psychological fact goes into every decision that has
to be made. Now the conclusion is sometimes drawn
from this that, sincere p^fl^i)fJlsiIjgjEes^^ is

so grearto~evefyBody, they will never be used, so that
war is already a thing of the past. This is a dangerous
half-truth. The only truth in it is that this has become a
psychological factor in all decision-making.

Along with this important psychological change, and
also operating constantly, is the widening and dis-
persal of the directions of state concern with espionage
at both the active and passive ends. And along with
this come changes in men's attitudes towards the ter-
ritorial domain of states which are now in full flow. Any-
one who is familiar with the vast and growing literature
on outer space, on the problems of reconnaissance from
outer space, the problem of the subjacent state and the
satellite or outer-space vehicle, quite apart from tlie-
fact that foreign civil aircraft constantly fly over the
territory of most states — anyone aware of these things
must also know that territorial sovereignty in the old
sense of full psychological sacrosanctity Js no longer
^ith us. There is in the background too, psychologically,
what I have called elsewhere the depersonalization of
weapons and the processes of killing, reinforced by
• ideological propaganda.

On the technological side, any projection of the law
of espionage must surely have in mind the revolution in
human communication that we are facing today. Espio-
nage and its law grew up when communication was
mostly face to face, or by physical writing, by carriage,

36

on foot, or on horseback. Obviously, we must do a great
deal more thinking in an age which can achieve in-
stantaneous radio communication by the use of tiny,
secretly disposed instruments; which can transfer sound
and images by bouncing waves off the ionosphere; and
which can produce satellites capable of photographing
from great and immunity-giving heights, and craft ca-
pable of probing laterally from outside territorial wa-
ters. Such developments would, in any case, prevent us
any longer from arguing mechanically from the tradi-
tional rules about maritime espionage to the conditions
of modern conflict. But at the very same time, the espio-
nage situation itself, if I may so speak of it, is being
transformed. The kinds of information that we are ac-
customed to think that spies seek are changed by the
nature of modem warfare, just as the kinds of contra-
band have changed that states want to seize in war-
time.

Let me remind you, so that we are warned about get-
ting too far behind the times, that as recently as 1909
the leading thinkers of the major naval powers were
suflSciently ill-advised to declare that certain kinds oF
commodities could never be of warUke use, and there-
fore could never be contraband. As late as 1909, they
included, bless my soul, industrial diamonds, rubber,
silk, and ( I add in parenthesis ) perhaps appropriately,
nuts! These are commodities which in 1909 couldn't
conceivably (they said) be useful for war. And I am
reminded, too, of the Law OflBcers of the British Crown
back in 1854 who were asked to advise whether a
British citizen, who was professor of science at the Mos-

37

cow University while Britain was at war with Russia,
might be guilty of treasonous activities. The learned
Law OflBcers used these delightful words: that of
course if he continued in the military, naval, or political
service of Russia this would be treasonous. But (they
said) professors, including professors of science, were
different. Even by working at a Russian University such
professors would not be guilty of any disloyalty; for,
said the Officers loftily, "civilized nations do not make
war against literature or science, nor do they desire to
prevent the progress of science even in the country
of an enemy." ^ We must, I venture to think, avoid this
kind of anachronism. For our very survival now depends
on being contemporaneous in our thinking, and not
pretending that we can either govern or preserve our-
selves in a transformed world, by the use of notions no
longer apphcable.

This point also bears on the question of the effect of
disclaimer of a spy by the sending state. Professor
Wright has mentioned this as being the gravamen of
much criticism of the United States government. I may
say I am not always in the position of supporting a
position of the United States government, or of any
other government. I try always to keep a certain
scholarly independence. Yet I think that, in the case of
the U-2 incident, the United States government has had
a raw deal, even from some prominent thinkers. Clearly,
when the secret agent's equipment consisted of oral
instructions, some invisible ink, a memorized code word,
and a couple of memorized addresses, together with a
phial of poison in his breast pocket for emergencies,

38

this is one espionage situation, isn t it, ladies and gentle-
men? And in this kind of situation, it is true that govern-
ments have regularly disowned their spies and they
have been able to do so without looking too silly. Why
did they disclaim? Professor Wright seems to assume
that it was because peacetime espionage was a state
delinquency; and Professor Wright is then at a loss to
understand when Oppenheim speaks of espionage in
peacetime as lawful in the same breath as he observes
on the regular state disclaimer of the spy. The fact is
that Oppenheim does treat peacetime espionage as
lawful; and I follow him in this. When Oppenheim
says ^ that the sending state "cannot" acknowledge its
spy, he was uttering a psychnlngical *Vannnt/' not (as
Professor Wright assumed) a legal "cannot." The psy-
chological point, as I see it, is that the espionage situa-
tion is, ladies and gentlemen, like some_^iia±iQllS_that
occasionally~arise between friends and even, I under-
stffidr^Setw^eh liusband and wife, when one of them
does the sort of thing about whi(3i jt isn^t reallyiiinyjiise
^^Jthgro-lotalk. The disowner of the spy is (as it were)
a way of forestalling the discomfort of negotiations
which could in any case only be fruitless; the practice
of disowner, therefore, may have no particular signifi-
cance at all in determining what the law is.

Contrarilv, I have already put it to you that if peace-
time espionage as such really did involve state dehn-
quency, it would be a most surprising thing that ag-
grieved states, when there was such a dehnquency,
should apparently have allowed the sending state to
acquire immunity from its consequences merely by

39

making a disowner. It is not the general habit of ag-
grieved states to take the mere ipse dixit, the bare
word, of the culprit state that it hasn't been naughty
really.

But I must not Hnger further onjhis. I want to come
to my concluding point, which is really a main point.
Professor Wright dealt with the various alibis or de-
fenses put forward by the United States Government,
and I don't want to go into their merits. It seems to
me that Washington's reply, or the gist of Washington's
reply, was, on the face of it, a very strange one. It was
necessary, as the President said, to get information
from behind the Iron Curtain for lessening the danger
of surprise attack against the democratic world; and
"no one wants another Pearl Harbor." And Mr. Gromyko
made the expected assault on this, making it look very
ridiculous by saying, in effect — If each state is entitled
to judge whether its fear justifies particular measures,
wouldn't there be a commotion in the United States if
Soviet spy-craft suddenly appeared over Chicago?
Well, Mr. Gromyko had to be reminded ( as indeed he
was by the American representative ) that there would
not necessarily have been much of a commotion, be-
cause the very start of all this business was a proposal
by President Eisenhower which could have permitted
Soviet spy-flights over Chicago. In other words, when
you penetrate a little below the face_valiifi.-X)£Jthfise
arguments, you come to the thesTjJthnt I will now
tentativelyTormulate, and which I'm sorry Washington
didn't formulate for itself. Nevertheless its worth our
attentionTTjf you^oltot have a system of international

40

inspection and if you cant get one (and I think it is
quite likely that we cant) then the function which
international inspection is supposed to serve still needs
fulfilling. You may not be able to fulfill it to the opti-
mum extent by reciprocally tolerated espionage, but
you may be able to reduce the dangers. It is not certain
that you can, but the possibihty surely is worth ex-
gloring.

The diflSculty in seeing this arises frnm being Vjirlp-
bound by history. Espionage, historically, before this
present age in which all ot us are placed in peiiLbyjhe
nuclear balance ot terror, has always been a unilateral,
"selfish, self-regardingT^iviswe acti\aty used by^^^ne
state against another to impose JtS-ends-on^ that other.
And in this sense it is linked, as Quincy Wright in-
sisted, with self -regarding intervention. But we are now
in an age in which Jboth sides have a common interest
in neither being able to make a surprise attack. This is
why the problem of an international inspection system
is very largely a problem of building into some interna-
tional system an adversary system of espionage for each
side. And I feel confident (though I have not discussed
it with him) that my successor on this rostrum will tell
you that one basic difficulty (among many others) in
the inspection problem is that of giving each side the
confidence that the system contains a component of
built-in espionage that is rehable from its own point of
view. So that, while we think about international
inspection (and the word "intemationar has a halo
around it and makes us feel good), we had better re-
member that a good system of international inspection

41

must be basically a system of reciprocal espionage, with
a seal of international umpireship on it.

Suppose we cannot get this, ladies and gentlemen.
Must we then just give up thinking about the job of
mitigating for both sides the dangers of nuclear attack?
Isn t this function still a function we must try to per-
form, by whatever methods are available? And was not
basically the position of your government, if you only
probe it, and give it perhaps a teeny, weeny, httle bit
of reinterpretation, the standpoint which I am suggest-
ing to you? Is not the rational basis of your govern-
ment's position this : that a second-best solution, at any
rate one worth considering, would be for the two sides
to reciprocally tolerate espionage. It is only up to this
point that I can take you in the time available, except
to try and give you a foreshortened glimpse of two
consequential problems.

One is this. If we recognize that some part of espio-
nage activity in our existing world represents not the
divisive interest of each side against the other, but the
common interest of both, then it becomes crucial to
recognize that espionage may have either to be frowned
upon, or to be approved according to the circumstances.
Spying may serve the common-interest function (which
I might call "the red-light function") of warning the
spying state of the other's preparations for surprise
attack. Or it may serve the divisive and destructive
function (which I may call the "green-Bght function*)
for which it may still also be used in our time, namely,
that of letting the spying side know that the other side
is momentarily exposed to surprise attack, because of

42

the level or disposition of its retaliatory forces or other
defensive arrangement. And this equally applies to
espionage by aircraft or by orbital or space-craft, or by
amphibious craft like the X-15.

So that if v^^e accept my main thought as something
worth pondering, we are still only at the beginning of
our problems. We still have to come to the question of
how each side can be sure, in a system of reciprocally
tolerated espionage, that the craft of the other are going
to perform only the salutory red-light function, and not
the dangerous green-light function.

And even if we think, as some do, that on principle
we can distinguish these two aspects of inspection ( and
therefore in my theory these two aspects of espionage
also), we still have very great difficulties. How is each
side going to police the activity of the other to make
sure that craft, which should be performing the red-
light function, are not in fact performing the green-
light function? On this point, after much prodding of
my brains, I have only a number of speculative ideas —
into which happily I have no time to go.

1. Wright, Legal Aspects of the U-2 Incident, 54 Am. J.
Int'l L. 836 ff. (Oct. 1960).

2. 317 U.S. 1 (1942).

3. Nederdanse Jupjsprudentia (Netherlands), No. 548
( Special Court of Cassation, 1949 ) .

4. Case of the S.S. "Lotus," P.C.I.J., ser. A, No. 10, p. 74
(1927), 2 World Court Reports 71 (Hudson ed. 1935).

5. 3 International Law Opinions 34 (McNair ed.
1956).

6. 1 Oppenheim, International Law, § 455 (3d ed.).

43

Space Espionage and World Order:
A Consideration of the
Samos-Midas Program

Richard A. Falk *

Hon. Victor Anfuso, Member of the House of Representatives,
N. Y.: "Mr. Khrushchev made a very fantastic remark that he
saw no angels in the heavens.

"Do you see any challenge to God in this venture into outer
space?"

Dr. T. Kieth Glennan, National Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ministration: "No sir."

— Missile Development and Space Sciences, 86th Cong., 1st
Session, House Committee on Science and Astronautics.

T,

HE EFFORT of the United States to improve its
knowledge of Soviet military installations is well known.
It has taken a variety of forms: the release of camera-
carrying balloons, the "open skies" proposal, U-2
overflights, and more recently ( if Soviet charges are to
be accepted),^ reconnaissance observation by subma-

* Associate Professor of International Law, Woodrow Wilson
School of Public and International A£Fairs, and Research Associate,
Center of International Studies, Princeton University.

lines operating within Soviet territorial waters. None of
these methods met (evidently) with enduring success.
Hopes are high, however, that the Samos and Midas
satellite program will, at last, do the job.

The plan is to launch several Samos satellites in polar
orbit from Port Arguello, Cahfornia, sometime before
the end of 1962. The polar orbit assures passage over a
large portion of Soviet territory.^ The Samos will carry
photographic and TV equipment that permits percep-
tion of surface objects equivalent to what the human
eye sees from one hundred feet. This should be enough
to pick up troop concentrations, airfields, missile sites,
and much other useful information. In addition to the
work of detection, the Samos will perform a continuing
surveillance role, since it can discern and report on
military buildups taking place on the ground.

The Midas satellite plays supplementary roles. Availa-
ble information indicates that Midas is designed to
facilitate the use of outer space for global communica-
tion systems and to detect and report on rocket launch-
ings. On October 21, 1961, at Port Arguello, California,
the Air Force launched in polar orbit a Midas IV satel-
lite (Project West Ford) to distribute, on a test basis,
millions of copper wires in a widening band that will
cover the entire globe; the wires will slowly descend to-
wards earth until they reach the atmosphere, where
they are expected to bum up.^ Scientists throughout the
world, including Americans, have protested against
Project West Ford on the ground of its interference
with astronomical uses of outer space.* Midas IV illus-
trates the interdependence of various uses of outer

46

space, and the bearing of the claim of one state upon
the preferred uses of other states.

Although Midas IV has military sponsorship, its exact
mihtary role is not clear. The main objective of the
Midas program, however, is to put into outer space
satellites that carry instruments capable of registering
^ rays emitted by gases that accompany rocket launch-
ings. Thus Midas will watch over the rocket-launching
sites that Samos finds. In time, Midas will carry instru-
ments so sensitive that they will be able to inform the
United States of the number of missiles fired and their
general direction, as well as their approximate point of
origin. This will, it has been suggested, aid American
experts to evaluate the progress of Soviet rocket activi-
ties with far greater precision than is at present pos-
sible.^ The Discoverer satellite, designed to utilize con-
tainers capable of bringing the photographs back to
earth, is also relevant to this program of space observa-
tion. And a Soviet commentator has suggested that the
supposedly civilian Tiros satelHte used to photograph
cloud cover in the service of meteorological study has
also photographed Soviet and Chinese territory on be-
half of United States mihtary intelligence agencies.*

The satelhte program, then, seems to offer the United
States a valuable inteUigence payoff that it has not been
able to secure by other means. Our intelhgence efforts
have evidently had difficulty penetrating the heavy
veils of secrecy that hang over Soviet mihtary activity.
In contrast, the competitive struggle for legislative ap-
propriations in the United States leads to pubhc dis-
semination of mihtary information, including missile

47

sites. Furthermore, Soviet intelligence operating by
"conventionar methods seems to be more successful in
the United States than ours is in Russia — although this
is highly speculative. In any event, it is a view com-
monly held in the United States that "the intelligence
gap" in favor of the Soviet Union is one of the serious
threats to the survival of the West.^ The particular qual-
ity of Samos-Midas intelligence emphasizes its relation
to national security. For the advance warning of sur-
prise attack given by Midas, or at least the expectation
of such advance warning, would increase the destructive
power of the second strike and, so the reasoning goes,
dissuade further an enemy from launching a surprise
attack.

Of course, the Soviets purport to see things dijBFer-
ently. They view Samos-Midas as an intelligence effort
that helps the United States to plan a successful sur-
prise attack. Why else are we seeking to observe missile
sites? A second-strike, defensive use of nuclear missiles
would choose cities and industrial centers as its prob-
able targets. Only a surprise attack selects missile-
launching sites as its target, the goal being to eliminate
the enemy's retaliatory capabihty. If the second-strike
capacity is minimal, retahation becomes a futile ges-
ture; surrender seems preferable, and the surprise at-
tack is fully successful. In any event, the force of the
second strike is cut down.

The strategic importance of observational intelli-
gence to the cold war makes this subject matter an
intractable area for isolated negotiation. We have seen
increasingly that neither the Soviet Union nor the

48

United States is likely to forego strategic advantages in
the cold war in order to promote the cause of world
order. One need only refer to the 1961 Soviet resump-
tion of nuclear testing or the 1956 Hungarian interven-
tion and to the initiation in 1946 of nuclear testing by
the United States on the high seas and to its participa-
tion in the armed invasion of Cuba in April, 1961, to
sense the tendency of cold-war pressure to overcome
considerations favoring restraint. Seen in this hght, the
prospects are indeed slim for depoHticizing a contro-
versy over the legitimacy of ground observation from
outer space.

One can smnmarize the extra-legal conditioning of
the Samos-Midas program, then, by pointing to the op-
posed military strategies and contradictory interpreta-
tions of motive on the part of the cold- war rivals. The
U.S.S.R. regards reconnaissance from outer space as a
threat to its survival, because it takes the pmpose to be
the locating of targets for a thermonuclear surprise at-
tack and the immediate effect to be the impairing of a
tradition (with Czarist credentials) of secrecy about
mihtary affairs. The United States, in contrast, links its
survival to an adequate warning system that will stabi-
lize deterrence and discoinrage surprise attack.

How is such a conflict to be resolved? Is it a discre-
tionary right of the United States to orbit reconnais-
sance sateUites over the Soviet Union? And is it a dis-
cretionary right of the Soviet Union to shoot them
down if it can? Have we no way, other than by force, to
vindicate or refute such a claim on the frontier of
technological development in outer space? How do we

49

attain limits for national conduct in an area where
there are neither authoritative practice nor converg-
ing interests to support an agreement? This essay can
not give answers to these questions. It tries, instead, to
describe the wider importance of the Samos-Midas pro-
gram for world order. And it suggests a technique of
evaluation that enlarges the horizon of relevance be-
yond the confines of mihtary strategy.^ This approach
aims at the development of a model of analysis for
the role of law in the cold war; it is admittedly pre-
liminary.

How shall we characterize the activity of the Samos-
Midas sateUite program? Is it "espionage*? Does it
make any difference whether it is or not? Traditional
definitions of espionage ^ emphasize its clandestine
character, and one can argue that the "openness" of
Samos-Midas activity puts it outside the scope of espio-
nage. This argument might present Samos-Midas as a
unilateral attempt to do what the open skies proposal
sought on a bilateral basis. Such an interpretation
would be more persuasive if it were coupled with a pro-
posal for the internationalization of the activity under
United Nations control.^" Observation from outer space,
in that case, would become assimilated into the special
needs for peace maintenance in a nuclear age. This ap-
proach deserves special consideration and supports a
careful differentiation between the potentiaV^ role of
Samos-Midas activity and the egoistic, secret use of
traditional espionage.

Such an interpretative problem parallels the Soviet
claim that outer space should be available only for

50

non-military uses (except in the event of war) , and that
Samos-Midas is a military use — related to the mihtary
effort, financed and administered by the United States
armed forces. As such, it is an abuse of outer space,
since it transforms it into a theater of military opera-
tions." The claim to use outer space for peacetime mili-
tary purposes sets a very dangerous precedent. We must
keep in mind the strength of reciprocity and estoppel in
an area of behavior without clear legal norms. A use by
A warrants an equivalents^ use by B and precludes
objection by A. Thus A's use establishes a permissive
norm. This basic pattern of international lawmaking
should encourage sober reflection in advance of uni-
lateral claims asserted at the frontiers of mihtary tech-
nique. For instance, looking back on nuclear testing,
one wonders if the United States would not have
helped its cause on every level by pressing for a test
ban or limitation in advance rather than by following a
unilateral pattern of claim, subsequent estoppel and
eventual anxious dismay.

Samos-Midas gathers and transmits its information
without entering the target state. ^^ This means that
there is no interference with the administration of the
national society. The effort to recruit and catch spies
is itself one of the objectionable aspects of espionage
activities. Observation from outer space by unmanned
satellites does not inject an information-gathering for-
eign agent into the lifeblood of the social order. A lead-
ing commentator suggests the analogy between Samos-
Midas and the permissible photographic observation of
shore objects from aircraft overflying the high seas."

51

However, this legitimation is qualified by the general
duty to use the high seas in a manner that does not
infringe upon the rights of the shore state, and further
by the evident right of the observed state to view such
observation as "aggressive" or "mihtary" and take ap-
propriate protective measures.^^ This description of "the
law" informs us only about the rhetorical techniques
used by participants in a decentralized legal order
faced with a conflict between claim ( Samos-Midas )
and objection (Soviet retaliation). As will be shown,
the international legal order possesses techniques for a
decentralized appraisal of legitimacy that apphes to the
Samos-Midas controversy. The factor of non-inter-
ference appears to support an evaluation in favor of the
activity.

It has been universally conceded that a nation can
forbid others to photograph strategic objects and
events taking place within its territory. All nations, in-
cluding the United States and the Soviet Union, strictly
regulate and punish activity on the ground which seeks
to obtain the same kind of information that Samos and
Midas collect from outer space. The Chicago Conven-
tion on International Civil Aviation, uncontested na-
tional legislation, and the U-2 incident convincingly
extend this power of prohibition to unauthorized infor-
mation-gathering conducted in territorial airspace." It
seems generally agreed that unauthorized observation
and photographing falls within the developing con-
cept of "espionage." In fact, even our newspapers have
dubbed Samos-Midas "space spies," "spy in the sky,"
and the like. State practice and general usage both

52

argue for the treatment of unauthorized aerial ob-
servation as "espionage," subject to regulation by the
victim state.^®

It is, of course, possible to stress the extra-territorial
character of Samos-Midas activity. One emphasizes the
territorial limits of national sovereignty and the non-
territorial status of outer space. But for the state that
is the target of observation it matters Httle where the
observer locates himself. The functional quahty of espi-
onage from outer space is, from the viewpoint of infor-
mation yield at least, no diflFerent from espionage in
airspace. Professor Katzenbach has perhaps overstated
this point when he suggests that the height of the activ-
ity is of no relevance to a proper determination of its
vahdity." Clearly the trend is toward the replacement
of mechanical criteria by contextual judgments as the
basis for the proper dehmitation of jurisdictional com-
petence. Rather than rely on the physical locus of con-
stituent acts, or on some other isolated qualifying ele-
ment of the facts — ^for instance, the nationahty of the
actor — it is now thought better to make a comprehen-
sive appraisal of the reasonableness of the particular
claim by reference to all aflFected interests.^'' A jurisdic-
tional decision, then, depends upon a balancing of the
competing interests of claimant and protesting states.
The jurisdictional model of decision-making is taken
primarily from the practice of national courts, but it is
apphcable here as well, since executive officials of the
United States are called upon to decide whether to
make a unilateral claim. The process of rational de-
cision, as McDougal has shown so well, is structurally

53

similar, regardless of where the decision-maker is lo-
cated in the social process.^^

On the basis of a consideration of the Samos-Midas
plan it seems, as I have said, prudent to characterize it
as "espionage." This puts it easily within the legislative
reach of Soviet law. For it is legitimate to prosecute for
espionage even if the defendant acts in foreign terri-
tory. The reach of United States economic regulation
serves to illustrate this kind of a claim in a situation in
which the prosecuting state has a lesser interest; ^^ that
is, the extension of claims to protect national security
has priority over the extension of claims to defend the
economy. If a state can regulate espionage taking place
in another sovereign state, then certainly it can impose
equivalent regulation upon similar activity in outer
space. Giving the activity a status of "espionage"
makes the locus of conduct irrelevant to the legislative
claim. It seems clear, then, that the Soviet Union has
legislative competence to characterize Samos-Midas as
"espionage" and to prescribe appropriate remedies.
One of the most characteristic features of the interna-
tional legal order is the wide discretion given to a na-
tion to characterize activity for purposes of applying its
legal policy. The Nottebohm case illustrates the attempt
of a supranational tribunal to discover limits to this
power of a nation to characterize in the area of na-
tionality. The case is enormously significant as a chal-
lenge to the tradition of decentralization. The extension
of Nottebohm thinking reflects itself in the "genuine
link" requirement for merchant shipping that has found
its way into the Geneva Convention on the Law of the

54

High Seas as a rebuflF to "flags of convenience/* " With-
out vertical institutional development, however, it re-
mains to be seen whether international order loses or
gains by attempts to centralize and objectify the power
to characterize. We give up the simple criterion of na-
tional discretion, and yet provide no substitute means
to specify legal status. Is this not, then, a premature at-
tempt to verticahze international legal order? Despite
Nottebohm it seems accurate to affirm the capacity of
nations to characterize activity that is threatening to
their miHtary security.^* In this respect we take note of
the United States claim of Air Defense Identification
Zones as a parallel instance.

But in the case of Samos-Midas — and this is the
novelty of the situation — the United States supports
its claim by reference to its miHtary security. That is,
we claim that the surveillance of the Soviet Union by
our satellites is an essential precaution against surprise
attack. The claim, in effect, makes espionage from outer
space a matter of self-defense. Thus, in a formal sense,
two irreconcilable claims are present. In a centralized
system this would call for the intervention of judicial or
legislative action to resolve the competing claims by
compromise or choice.^^ But what is to be done in a rela-
tively decentralized legal order?

The probable course of conduct in a decentrahzed
legal order will emphasize the maximum assertion of
the opposed national claims at each stage of the con-
troversy. Thus the United States will try to orbit the
satellites and the Soviet Union will try to shoot them
down. However, a preferred course of conduct would

55

look also to the reasonableness of the assertion of the
claim, given competing interests, and make every ef-
fort to justify it to the target state. This appHes to the
United States decision to orbit more than to the deriva-
tive Soviet decision to interfere v^ith the satellites. For
the nation that disturbs the status quo in a decentral-
ized legal order bears the main burden for the instabil-
ity that follows. The position of the United States, as
the leader of the bloc resisting the expansion of the
revolutionary nations,^® entails a special national inter-
est in strengthening international order. Therefore it is
with dismay that one observes our government's pro-
gressive neglect to consider the bearing of international
order upon national welfare. It is not that we must
sacrifice national security to promote world order, but
rather that we should see whether the sacrifice in order
is worth the gain in security. The U-2 incident, the
sponsorship of the Cuban invasion of April 1961, the
Connally Reservation, and the fight to keep Formosa on
the Security Council are instances in which an overly
narrow interpretation of national interest unnecessarily
impairs the quality of contemporary world order. Like-
wise there is no evidence that the decision to put the
Samos-Midas program into operation takes adequate
account of its probable destabilizing eflPect on other
activity in outer space. So far, outer space has been
used compatibly by cold-war rivals for peaceful pur-
poses.^ It seems hazardous to make outer space a part
of the cold- war arena. It is diflBcult, without access to
intelligence appraisals, to suggest the probable net gain
or loss from Samos-Midas. Nevertheless, it is possible to

56

urge a basis of decision that considers the consequences
for world order as well as the gains for military intelli-
gence.

It is probably not useful to debate "the legality" of
espionage in the traditional system of international law.
For espionage, as such, possesses the peculiar quality
of being tolerated, but illegal.^^ This odd status, which
is much like that of prostitution in many European
countries, has encouraged a practice whereby states
engage in espionage but do not come forward to defend
an agent who is caught by the techniques of counter-
espionage. Consider, for example, the silence of Soviet
authorities during the long trial of Colonel Abel, as well
as the recent Soviet willingness to exchange Powers and
Prior for Abel. The silence of the state sending the
espionage agent usually results in the target state's di-
recting its sanctions only against the detected agent.
The employing state is not drawn formally into the
espionage trial, nor is there any eflFort to impose legal
responsibihty upon the state for the espionage it has
commissioned.

However, the rules of the game must be observed. If
the espionage activity involves an independent viola-
tion of the target state's sovereignty, then the sending
state makes itself vulnerable to direct charges of illegal-
ity. Likewise, if the sending state steps forward to
acknowledge and defend its espionage ventures, it
would also seem to assume responsibihty for the illegal
activity. It was such an acknowledgment which created
some of the unusual problems raised by the U-2 inci-
dent.

57

Let us consider now the Samos-Midas program from
this perspective. First of all, the program would seem to
constitute "espionage" under explicit government aus-
pices. Part of its legal quality would depend upon
American motivation, and especially on the extent to
which the information so gained contributes to defen-
sive rather than aggressive policies of national defense.
That is, the test for the relative illegality of espionage
rests to some degree upon one's judgment of the end
being sought. However, in view of the usefulness of
Samos-Midas for aggressive purposes, primary responsi-
bility would appear to devolve upon the United States.
The project is an attempt to undermine the security
regulations of a sovereign state during peacetime and,
as such, would seem to violate the independence of the
target state. A strong argument on behalf of Soviet ob-
jections could be made before an impartial decision-
maker. The United Nations Security Council would be
an appropriate forum for discussion and appraisal.
Characteristically, as we have said, the government
sponsoring "espionage" is not exphcitly connected with
its agents, and the enforcement state proceeds against
the agent as an ordinary criminal defendant; but
Samos-Midas presents a novel pattern of espionage
activity that renders much of the legal reasoning appli-
cable to traditional espionage obsolete.

Presumably the satelHtes, as governmental property
devoted to a public use, would, by application of nor-
mal principles, be entitled to sovereign immunity. How-
ever, the use of satellites to break the laws of target
states would, at least after warning, allow the latter to

58

take coercive action in self -protection. Furthermore, im-
munity is primarily a judicial inhibition. In any event, it
is unlikely that the disposition of the controversy would
stress to any degree the sovereign ownership of the
sateUites.

Finally, there is the Soviet claim to engage in extra-
territorial enforcement. Even if one grants that outer
space is "outside'* of national territory, it is still quite
legitimate to reason, by analogy to the practice in con-
tiguous zones on the high seas, that a state may make
claims that are reasonably necessary for its national
security. Thus there would be no need to claim sov-
ereignty up to the heavens in order to justify Soviet en-
forcement of its espionage laws in outer space. Russia
could quite reasonably assert a particularized claim
to control espionage, even if the objectionable acts were
all performed in outer space. Putting this into jurisdic-
tional rhetoric, we can say that a jurisdictional claim to
assert control over a particular activity in outer space
need not rest upon a prior estabhshment of national
sovereignty over outer space. Neither the physical
locus of conduct nor sovereignty are indispensable
bases for vahd jurisdictional claims, although both are
frequently used. In fact, it is important to encourage
the formulation of particularized claims, supported by
their reasonable hnk to national interest, in preference
to wholesale extensions of sovereignty that will vali-
date, among other things, the particular claim. The
experience with territorial waters is instructive. Latin
American claims to wide (200-300 miles) belts of ter-
ritorial waters were prompted by a desire to keep for-

59

eign trawling fleets out of coastal fishing grounds. It
would have served this interest, and kept a maximum
area for free, unimpeded use of the high seas, had these
nations instead put their claim in the kind of specific
language used to justify national control beyond the
territorial waters.^^ The particular claim, justified by-
reference to national interests, meets the needs of world
order far more than does the crude exclusivity of the no-
tion of sovereignty. For wherever it is functionally ad-
vantageous to share use, it is best to work out a solution
along specific fines. The dichotomy between freedom
(of the high seas, of outer space) and sovereignty is an
inept way to allocate legal competence in an area where
most uses are inclusive, but where a few are exclusive. ^°
World order advances by accommodating these two
sets of national interests; that is, by encouraging the
awareness that national interests often profit more from
foregoing exclusivity than from insisting on it.^^ The
growth of supranationafism in Europe, the Antarctic
Treaty, and the success of the specialized agencies of
the United Nations bear witness to an emerging reafiza-
tion that sovereignty is not the answer to the allocation
of authority and resources in areas which are of genu-
ine interest to more than one nation. But such promis-
ing developments as these depend upon the wilhngness
of nations not to use the community form as a base for
hostile operations against a member of the commu-
nity.^^ Here again one senses the potential harm that
may be done by Samos-Midas. In the struggle to mini-
mize exclusive claims in outer space it is dangerous to
jeopardize the perceived safety of other nations. For

60

to do so causes the minimum basis for trust to disappear
and the functional compatibiHty of interests to vanish
from perception.

This discussion raises a general theoretical issue rele-
vant to the future course of international legal develop-
ment. The facts of progressive interdependence, so fre-
quently acknovi^ledged in recent Hterature, lead to a
need for sharper allocational concepts in the interna-
tional legal system. When nations were relatively inde-
pendent in the pursuit of their interests, it was desirable
to stress the simplicity of the ideas of sovereign ex-
clusivity and inclusive freedom. Interdependence re-
quires more subtle categories of international law, cate-
gories which will give maximum support to as many
genuine national interests as possible. The encourage-
ment of ad hoc justifications for particular claims ac-
cords with this need. It allows the process of claim and
resistance to claim to emphasize relative functional
considerations rather than abstract categories of legal
status. This seems to be the best way for an interde-
pendent but decentrahzed legal order to proceed if it is
to solicit maximum support from national actors. This is
very important, because the slow growth of suprana-
tional legal order depends heavily on the development
of trust on the national level. And trust emerges from
the perception of a non-arbitrary attempt to serve the
community and its members.

All this bears on the attempts to solve the problems of
outer space by drawing a rough analogy to the status of
airspace, the high seas, or the polar regions.^^ Thus, us-
ing the simphfied traditional doctrine, one extends air-

61

space upward forever and affirms a notion of sover-
eignty (although this is so patently impractical that it
dissuades most), or one finds a boundary for airspace
and proclaims the freedom of outer space, or one stresses
the prescriptive character of acquired rights in outer
space. The process of claim underneath the crude doc-
trinal categories provides considerable guidance from
past experience, especially with regard to the histori-
cal administration of the high seas. Professor Lipson
had made this point with admirable succinctness:

In maritime law and practice there is not merely
a zone of territorial waters, a single contiguous
zone, and the free high seas; there is a whole clus-
ter of zones, overlapping and intersecting, estab-
lished at different times for different purposes by
different states (unilaterally, bilaterally, and mul-
tilaterally) with different degrees of formality, en-
forced by different methods, and accepted in dif-
ferent degrees by varying numbers of other states.

This general view is made quite concrete:

No unitary rule could or should be devised to
cover this motley patchwork; there is no reason
why one rule of law must apply to the regulation,
control, prohibition, or mutual tolerance of such
diverse activities as navigation, fishing, conserva-
tion of fisheries, and cable-laying; naval maneuvers
and antisubmarine patrol; the use and conserva-
tion of resources on the sea bed; enforcement of
customs regulation; and protection of neutrality. It
is this very diversity of legal order, stemming from
the diversity of policies and purposes, fitting the
diversity of activities and conditions, that wilt pro-

62

vide a fruitful analogy for what must be a gradual
development of the law of outer space. ( Emphasis
supplied.) ^*

This sophisticated view of analogy, stressing concrete
legal problems rather than overarching doctrinal ab-
stractions, is the basis for rational law-planning in
outer space. The facts of interdependence, highlighted
by the problem of distinguishing between mihtary
and peaceful uses, make it essential that nations assert
their claims with a clear sense of community welfare in
mind. Allocations on the high seas could allow specific
unilateral assertions based on a narrow view of national
interest without often risking, until very recently, com-
munity welfare. Rational allocation of authority to act
in outer space, however, requires a broader view of
national interest that incorporates the genuine concerns
of other nations if it is to foster the growth of a legal
regime based upon maximum use and minimum fric-
tion. It is this emphasis that is urged here for an ap-
praisal of the legality of the Samos-Midas program.
We can see that Samos-Midas seriously threatens the
prospects for a co-operative development of outer
space. The Soviet Union can reduce the threat some-
what by directing its objection at the use of outer
space by the United States for military espionage rather
than by resting its objection upon some claim of sover-
eignty over that portion of outer space that is "above"
its territory. Similarly, the United States can defend its
actions by asserting the reasonableness of Samos-
Midas in view of its non-interference with the Soviet

63

social order and its contribution to the United States
defense system; such a defense could be made dramatic
by an offer to put Samos-Midas under supranational
administration. Although there is no easy solution to this
conflict of national interests, there are more and less
responsible ways of seeking a resolution.

Is this argument changed by the fact that Samos-
Midas orbits through "outer space" as an unmanned
instrument? Such an inquiry is independent of, al-
though related to, the earlier discussion on jurisdiction.
It looks upon the issue from the special perspective of
national sovereignty and its distinctive ordering role in
international affairs.^^ Does a surface state have any
sovereign control over activity that takes place in "outer
space'? President Kennedy recently told the General
Assembly of the United Nations that "the new horizons
of outer space must not be riven by the old bitter con-
cepts of imperialism and sovereignty." ^® This presum-
ably means that the development of outer space should
not proceed by states claiming exclusive control over
specified uses or regions of outer space. It looks toward
some co-operative regime established and operated by
legal institutions and techniques. However, "sover-
eignty" also refers to the capacity of states to generate
legal order. But how can we overcome the contradic-
tory national policies of cold- war rivals? With the ob-
jective of legal order in view, let us examine the ways
in which disputes as to contested uses of outer space
might be handled under the circumstances of present
political conflict. Here, the role of national sovereignty
— ^not as a way to validate claims to exclusive control

64

but as an agent to establish the legitimacy of particular
claims or to bring into being a legal regime — is in-
deed complex.

One steps into a dense jurisprudential jungle at this
point. The delimitation of national sovereignty, as or-
dering agency, is among the most slippery subjects in
international law. It is especially problematic in a case,
such as this, where prior experience offers relatively Ht-
tle guidance. The legal order tends to resolve present
controversies by reference back to past norms and dis-
positions. When the past does not provide guidance,
and the issue is important, the legal order in a cen-
tralized social system tends to generate a new solution
through the agency of legislative action. The interna-
tional legal order lacks central legislative institutions.
It depends, instead, upon decentralized ordering
techniques to meet the challenge of a new situation. But
the outer limit of innovation in a decentralized system
is reached at the point where the interests of the power-
ful actors within the system begin to diverge signifi-
cantly. For international law this means, among other
things, that the equivalent of legislation — at least of a
formal variety — ^must satisfy the dominant interests of
powerful national actors. Thus it is difiicult to antici-
pate a formal resolution of a dispute — not covered by
the inherited system ^^ — when antagonistic interests of
the United States and the Soviet Union arise from cold-
war subject matter. This analysis seems suggestive for
our attempt to understand the bearing of international
law upon the United States' plan to use outer space for
"espionage" against the Soviet Union. Those who

65

would resolve such a controversy by negotiating an
agreement on the degree of national sovereignty over
outer space overlook, it v^ould seem, the relevance of
the character of the international system to the pre-
scription of new norms. The incapacity of the interna-
tional system to provide orderly ways to test new claims
is a serious cause of contemporary instabihty. A nation
is given the choice of self-restraint or recourse to uni-
lateral action backed by force. The danger of forcing
such a choice back onto the national level is illus-
trated by Israel's initiation of the Suez campaign in
1956 and by the revolts of oppressed peoples in Africa.
Samos-Midas also illustrates the inflexibility of the
system. There is no institutionaHzed way to determine
the validity of the United States claim, and the leaders
of the two nuclear blocs must settle the issue by give
and take. Once the satellites are put in orbit, a cycle of
friction and retaliation is likely to begin. This raises, of
course, the whole problem of the relation between in-
ternational law and social change in the world today.
The instability of the system results most significantly
from the absence of supranational legislative tech-
niques, the existence of oppressive national governing
elites, and the willingness of cold-war rivals to inter-
vene on behalf of contending internal factions. And
rigidity is characteristically present whenever a new
controversial claim has cold-war relevance, as does
Samos-Midas.

Adjudication is formally possible. The issue could be
put in justiciable form : Are observational satellites for-
bidden by international law? But the negative consid-

erations applicable to legislation apply a fortiori to
adjudication. In addition, the Soviet Union refuses to al-
low legal order to emerge from supranational decisions;
it takes a very conservative view of transfers of sover-
eign discretion. Finally, the establishment of a legal
regime for outer space is a polycentric issue ill suited
for adjudicative techniques and institutions.^® The in-
definiteness of the grounds of any possible decision
tends to undermine its acceptabihty to the losing
litigant. Nations generally refuse to submit important
legal controversies to adjudicative organs when they
can not, in advance, envision the general character of
the legal solution. In any event, the status of Samos-
Midas implies a determination of an entire legal regime
for outer space. This assumes a scope of inquiry and
decision that is not normally possible in the judicial
process.

An alternative to a formal decision in advance is to
accept the eflFectiveness of the claim to orbit the satel-
lites as a criterion of legitimacy. Thus the United States
is not forbidden to put Samos-Midas in orbit, but nei-
ther is the Soviet Union forbidden to shoot the satellites
down. The Harvard Law Review put it this way in a
perceptive note:

. . . Whether the Soviet Union will choose to de-
stroy American spy satelHtes when it becomes ca-
pable of doing so depends on Soviet national goals
as conceived by the Soviet leaders. For the purpose
of a legal analysis, however, it is sufficient to ob-
serve that whatever the Soviet Union does in this
regard will not appear to be violative of interna-
tional law. . . . (Emphasis supplied.) ^*

67

Reliance upon effective control as a determinant of the
legitimacy of "military" claims is an undesirable way to
fill a legislative vacuum. It tends to accentuate the
formative role of relative power in international affairs.
Small nations, lacking space technology, are then left
without protection. This promotes further the bipolari-
zation of outer space, as only the United States and the
Soviet Union possess the technological base for ex-
tensive space activity in the period ahead. It also makes
coercive conflict an institutional technique for accom-
modation; this may be a last resort, but it is hardly ac-
ceptable if alternatives can be found. The habit of test-
ing limits by awaiting the application of counterforce
adds to the instability of the times. It is not an implica-
tion of conflict on the political level.

A voluntaristic theory of international obligation, as
formulated by the Lotus majority decision, gives a sup-
porting analysis.*" The basic idea is that the objecting
state has the burden of showing that the defendant
state acted in violation of an existing rule of interna-
tional law. Put affirmatively, this means that a state
may do whatever it is not expressly forbidden to do by
international law. Thus in areas where there is no con-
sensus as to even the existence of a legal order, much
less its quality, a state may do whatever it pleases, sub-
ject only to another state's right to act in self-defense.
Specifically, the United States may launch its observa-
tional satellites and the Russians may shoot them down
if they purport to do so in self-defense." The Lotus
approach when coupled with the customary right of
self-defense seems rather similar to the solution reached

68

by the dynamics of effective control. The U-2 incident
suggests that such approaches lead to serious intensifi-
cations of cold-war tensions and interfere with what-
ever prospects for wider accommodations exist at the
time/^ In addition, one may question the legality and
wisdom of authorizing defensive force to test "the per-
missibility'' of the Samos-Midas satellites. The Charter
renunciation of force is qualified by the limited grant
of Article 51 that preserves "the inherent right of indi-
vidual or collective self-defense if an armed attack oc-
curs." Certainly the observational satellite does not con-
stitute "an armed attack." It is true that some Charter
experts contend that Article 51 preserves "the inherent
right" which includes a decentralized determination of
what must be done in self-defense.*^ But such a broad
interpretation of the right of self-defense is less plau-
sible than its narrower alternative, and dissolves a fairly
objective standard for the use of defensive force. The
need for stable hmits on the use of force in a world
filled with nuclear weapons suggests the high serious-
ness of following a course of action that gives a victim
state no real alternative to the use of defensive force. It
is with this in mind that American policy-makers
should consider carefully the advisability of present-
ing the Soviet Union with a situation in which its vital
interests can be protected only by recourse to force.**
This essay seeks to deal with the contemplated
Samos-Midas program in fight of the struggle to achieve
minimum stability in world affairs. Much of the discus-
sion of this kind of issue loses sight of the national in-
terest in world order by its focus upon the national in-

terest in getting the upper hand at the moment in the
cold war. The relation between these two levels of in-
terest is indeed obscure. We improve our understand-
ing, however, by growing aware of the distinction.

What is the relevance of the cold war to the quest for
legitimacy in controversial areas of world aflPairs?
Bipolarity, nuclear weapons, the cold war — each condi-
tions the possibihties for legal growth. The Samos-
Midas program raises directly such issues of relevance,
since it so obviously deals with the perceived vital in-
terests of the bloc leaders in the cold war. How much is
legitimacy worth to us in our dealings with the Rus-
sians? Should we ignore legal restraints so as to meet
the communist challenge? We find the attitude of Ad-
miral Ward at one end of the spectrum:

Isn't it about time to free ourselves of our decep-
tion that accommodations can buy peace from the
Communists, and that peace with them can be se-
cured through law — even space law?*®

Law, then, becomes for the Untied States a matter of
unilateral self-restraint, as there is no mutuality of
commitment. The Soviets manipulate legal obhgations
to suit their political objectives, repudiating such obli-
gations when their objectives change. The United
States, in contrast, adheres to legal obligations once
undertaken, and thus loses flexibility in the political
struggle. In this view, legal restraint does not restrict So-
viet freedom of action, but it does restrict ours. There-
fore, we should stay clear of legal accommodations
with the Russians on cold-war issues. Law acts as a

70

1

trap. Presumably, then, the United States should go
briskly forward with Samos-Midas regardless of its
destabihzing consequences because Soviet ideology
and practice make legal accommodation self-destruc-
tive. Law and survival act to contradict one another.
A more moderate attitude towards the role of law in
the cold war gives critical emphasis to strategy and
experience. Legal accommodation may be desirable,
but only when we have enough experience to assess the
bearing of a legal obligation upon our special needs for
survival under present conditions. Loftus Becker, writ-
ing as Legal Adviser, said:

. . . Any sound body of law is based on a system
of experience and known facts. There are a great
deal of facts that we just don't know at the present
time with respect to outer space and the conditions
there existing.*^

To this uncertainty arising from inexperience is added
a deep distrust of the Soviet Union. Professor Lipson
writes, for instance:

In this field [of outer space] as in other fields of
international law, Soviet doctrine combines a pious
attachment to the names of traditional concepts
with a flexible, "instrumental" manipulation of the
content of the concepts to serve the current needs
of Soviet policy.*^

Distrust leads to an insistence on very clear lines of
commitment; hence, we must be sure what we are giv-
ing up before we agree with the Russians. In outer

71

space we do not have enough experience, at present,
to be sure that a commitment we make today might not
place us in handcuffs tomorrow. Here again primacy
is given to pohtical factors, and survival is linked to
freedom of choice rather than to stable limits upon
choice."^ Law must be content with a marginal role,
stabilizing areas of convergence after all the facts are
in, rather than preparing an ordering scheme for the
emerging facts. In the interim, the Lotus interpretation
of sovereignty is used to justify all non-prohibited con-
duct. Existing law does not pertain to outer space. A
state can thus do whatever it wants. Therefore, if
Samos-Midas is helpful to us, we should proceed with
it, since there is no appHcable legal restraint. There is
much to be said for an approach that is so simple and
permissive; however, it fails to take account of the
destabilizing effect of novel unilateral military claims
in a decentrahzed social order in which the chief actors
possess thermonuclear bombs. It also overlooks horizon-
tal and provisional ordering possibilities that arise from
unilateral self-restraint. These possibilities will not al-
ways gain more order (for example, the Soviet resump-
tion of nuclear testing); but they may postpone friction
and induce reciprocal self-restraint by the Soviet
Union. We would have only the choice between sur-
render and preventive war if we did not posit a mini-
mum Soviet commitment to world order and the avoid-
ance of nuclear devastation.*® We often act, however,
as if there were alternatives in the middle. Thus it is
rational for us to take some risks to order international
relations, even though it may conceivably give strategic

72

benefits to the Soviet Union. Such considerations
should influence decisions made with regard to the
Samos-Midas program.

At the other end of the spectrum one finds a variety
of scholars and concerned pubhc officials w^ho feel that
it is essential that w^e estabfish a vertical legal regime
prior to the assertion of various national claims. For
instance, Senator Keating put it this v^ay:

There will be no time for legal craftsmanship and
judicial speculation after rival claims are made to
the moon or to space itself. . . . The rule of law in
the age of space is not a matter of philosophy, but
a matter of survival. ^^

And John Cobb Cooper has for years brought the
weight of his learning and authority to bear in this di-
rection. In 1960 he said at Leyden that "international
peace and the future welfare of mankind demand that
the Rule of Law shall be applicable with certainty to
outer space." ^^ This requires a clear agreement as to the
rights and duties of nations in outer space:

If the Rule of Law is to be applied in outer space,
then I submit, as I have on other occasions, that the
area of outer space must be determined, that its
legal status be agreed upon, that the rights of
States in the area be universally acknowledged
and that the legal status of flight instrumentafities
to be used in outer space be also fixed.*^^

This position stresses the ordering role of law, and does
so without regard to the character of the international

73

system as it now exists. Without techniques for social
change, nations are unwiUing to agree on a legal re-
gime until they see clearly what is involved. Space and
flight developments have proceeded with such rapidity
that those proposing a basis for legal agreement have
constantly had to revise their recommendations. Mr.
Cooper's writings through the years provide a striking
illustration of the need to change law to meet new
technological developments.^^ Agreement at any stage
is inadequate at the next technological stage; renegotia-
tion is always diflBcult since the new development has
an unequal bearing upon the national interests of the
participating states. This intractabihty would apply
most vividly when extra-legal developments have an
unequal effect on the military positions of the cold-war
rivals. Vertical norms — that is, norms with formal status
as supranational obhgations ^* — could not withstand
such a strain. It is probably premature, as Becker and
Lipson suggest, to create vertical norms to govern outer
space at this time. But it is never premature to seek
horizontal legal order. The alternatives are too gen-
erally seen as comprehensive international agreement
or chaos, vertical law or lawlessness, legal restraint
or sovereign imrestraint.

My argument is that the effects of Samos-Midas upon
the stability of the use of outer space as well as upon
the use of defensive force challenge the rationality
of the claims of the United States to use outer space for
the military observation of the Soviet Union. Horizontal
legal order particularizes the focus of inquiry upon the

74

reasonableness of a national claim given all relevant
considerations, including infringements upon the inter-
ests of other states. It is this process of inquiry, outlined
in general form in this paper, that should govern the
decision whether or not to put Samos-Midas satelUtes in
orbit above Soviet territory. Final appraisal rests
heavily upon access to data that are unavailable to the
public: the importance of the information obtainable,
the degree of Soviet objection, the probable success of
Soviet attempts to shoot down or otherwise interfere
with the satellites, the bearing the project would have
upon possible co-operative space projects and the
eventual demilitarization of space, and the develop-
ment of alternative means to receive equivalent intel-
ligence. Newspaper reports and legislative hearings re-
veal no consideration of the wider imphcations of the
Samos-Midas program for world order. The strategic
advantage of closing the intelligence gap seems to be
taken as a self-suflBcient justification for asserting the
imilateral claim. Such a foreshortening of inquiry,
which seems to exclude the bearing of Samos-Midas
upon international order, is unforgivable in a world
where potential enemies in a thermonuclear war boast
of their "overkill" capacity. It may be part of the com-
plexity of the times to acknowledge the importance of
Henry Kissinger's remark that "the very intensity of our
desire for peace may increase our peril." ^^ But such a
perception should not lead us to deny the manifest
rationality at the core of this intense desire. We must
continue to apply our energies to the diminishing of

75

our peril. At least as far as the Samos-Midas program is
concerned, there is httle evidence of such an applica-
tion of energy.

Let us, then, be mindful of the bearing upon na-
tional interests of President Kennedy's recent plea to
the United Nations: "As we extend the rule on earth,
so must we also extend it to man s new domain — outer
space." ^^ The character of the times makes this a na-
tional responsibihty as well as a universal aspiration.

1. N.Y. Times, Aug. 29, 1961. For a military appraisal of
aerial surveillance, see Ford, Tactical Reconnaissance, 12
Am UNiVERsmr Q. Rev. 120 (Winter and Spring 1960-61).

2. Coates, Reconnaissance Satellites, 3 Spaceflight 100
(1961).

3. N.Y. Times, Oct. 22, 1961.

4. See criticisms by scientists from many countries, in-
cluding the United States, N.Y. Times, Oct. 23, 1961.

5. "Two ballistic missile warning systems are currently
programed. The first, already partially operational, is the
BalHstic Missile Early Warning System (bmews). . . .
The second warning system, which will complement bmews,
is the missile defense alarm satellite (Midas).'* Wheless,
The Deterrent Offensive Force, 12 Am Untversity Q. Rev.
59, 68 (Winter and Spring 1960-61).

6. See Zhukov, Space Espionage Plans and International
Law, reprinted from Intl Aff. 53-57 (Moscow, Oct.
1960), in symposium on Legal Problems of Space Explo-
ration prepared for Senate Committee on Astronautical
and Space Sciences, Doc. No. 26, 87th Cong., 1st Sess. 1095,
1098 (1961) [hereinafter cited as Legal Problems]. (See
same volume for representative formulations of Soviet
bloc's views on the use of space.)

7. E.g., Hearings on Missiles, Space and Other Major
Defense Matters before the Preparedness Investigating
Subcommittee of the Committee on the Armed Forces of

76

the U. S. Senate, 86th Cong., 2d Sess., 70 (1960); Baldwin,
Intelligence and Survival, N.Y. Times, May 9, 1960. How-
ever, if the U-2 flights enabled the United States to plot
• geodetic co-ordinates within Soviet territory, the gap may
actually be in our favor.

8. Crane, Planning for Space Legal Policy (paper pre-
sented to American Rocket Society, Oct. 1961), develops a
similar position in explicating what he calls the "motivation
for space policy"; for instance, he says that "the basic thesis
of this paper is that law is gaining increasing value as an
instrument to deny control of outer space to others, and
that the potential advantage of a law-oriented space policy
should be integrated into military contingency planning."
Contrast the approach taken in Aerospace Force in the
Sixties, symposium in 12 Air University Q. Rev. 1 (Winter
and Spring 1960-61).

9. E.g., consider the definition given under Espionage in
5 Encyc. Soc. Sci. 594 ( 1931 ) : "Espionage is the practice
of obtaining information about an actual or potential en-
emy clandestinely for possible use against the enemy."

10. Quigg, Open Skies and Open Space, Legal Prob-
lems 463; Young, The Aerial Inspection Plan and Air Space
Sovereignty, Legal Problems 46.

11. My intention is to highlight the distinction between
a unilateral, self-serving use (the actual probability) and a
community-oriented, altruistic use (the potential possi-
bility).

12. President Kennedy expressed this concern in his
address to the 16th Session of the General Assembly: "The
cold reaches of the universe must not become the new
arena of an even colder war," N.Y. Times, Sept. 26, 1961.

13. Equivalent use does not mean identical use; thus a
military use by A of outer space that serves its strategic
needs legitimates a proportionate use by B, given its pecul-
iar strategic needs. Cf. the rather unconvincing suggestion
of equivalence between Sputnik and U-2 overflights by
Lipson, The Gagarin and Powers Flights, 17 Bulletin of
THE Atomic Scientists 274 (1961).

14. This formulation implicitly assumes that Samos-
Midas satellites operate in "outer space" and that outer

77

space is outside of national territory. This issue will receive
later consideration.

15. See Cooper, Letter to the Editor, 3 Spaceflight, No.
2 at 99 (1961).

16. Id. at 100.

17. See Wright, Legal Aspects of the U-2 Incident, 54
Am. J. Intl L. 836 (1960).

18. An additional question can be asked: Is espionage
illegal per se under international law or is it illegal only if
there is some added element of illegality, such as an un-
authorized penetration of the target state's territory? One
can use this inquiry, as does Julius Stone, to suggest the
legality of the Samos-Midas program under existing inter-
national law. This reasoning allows one to disregard the
espionage feature in an appraisal of the legality of the
contested activity. However, its eflFect is to destabilize
interstate relations by resting a state's defensive authority
upon technological change (i.e. ability to observe from
outer space) rather than upon an analysis of the balance
between the community interests favoring the use and the
target state's interests in denying the use. Artificial legal
categories cannot serve to determine the legal status of a
contested quasi-military claim in an interdependent realm
of conduct (such as outer space), especially if the claim is
laden with cold- war implications.

19. Katzenbach, Law and Lawyers in Space, 14 Bulle-
tin OF THE Atomic Scientists 221, 222: "Whether it [satel-
lite] is higher or lower is irrelevant to the objections an
observer state would posit or the claims the observer would
make."

20. Falk, lurisdiction. Immunities, and Act of State —
Suggestions for a Modified Approach, in Essays on Inter-
national Jurisdiction (1961); Trautman, The Role of
Conflicts Thinking in Defining the International Reach of
American Regulatory Legislation, 20 Ohio St. L. J. 586
(1961).

21. See especially McDougal, International Law, Power
and Policy — A Contemporary Conception, 82 Hague Re-
CUEIL 137 (1953); McDougal, The Policy-Science Ap-
proach to International Legal Studies, in International

78

Law and the United Nations (Eighth Summer Institute,
University of Michigan Law School, June 1955).

22. For instance, the controversial extra-territorial anti-
trust decisions: United States v. Timken Roller Bearing
Co., 341 U.S. 593 (1951); United States v. Aluminum Co.
of America, 148 F. 2d 416, 443 (2d Cir. 1946); see gener-
ally U.S. Attorney General's National Committee to
Study the Antitrust Law Report 66-91 (1955).

23. Geneva Convention on the High Seas, U.N. Doc.
A/CONF. 13/L. 53 and corr. 1 (1958) Article 5 (1):
"Each State shall fix the conditions for the grant of its na-
tionality to ships. . . . There must exist a genuine link be-
tween the State and the ship; in particular, the State must
effectively exercise its jurisdiction and control in adminis-
trative, technical and social matters over ships flying its
flag."

24. But this does relieve the claimant state of the duty
to use a rational process of self-delimitation when it pro-
poses to extend its competence by unilateral action; reci-
procity and estoppel operate to limit the unilaterality of
the process. See generally Falk, International Jurisdiction
— Horizontal and Vertical Conceptions of Legal Order, 32
Temp. L. Q. 295 (1959).

25. The probable inutility of these institutional alterna-
tives is taken up later in this essay. Here the point is that a
centralized legal order (e.g., domestic society in a modern
state) solves controversies at the frontier by generating a
new norm (legislation) or by extending an old norm (ad-
judication ) . Of course, this distinction is a caricature of the
continuum that links judicial and legislative functions in an
operating legal system.

26. Falk, Revolutionary Nations and the Quality of In-
ternational Legal Order, in The World Revolution of Our
Times, to be pubhshed in 1962.

27. Of course, nuclear testing and missile development
are military uses of outer space. However, they are neither
continuing nor inconsistent with the non-military use of
outer space during conditions of peace.

28. For the qualified assertion that "espionage of itself
does not appear to constitute a violation of international

79

law" see Note, Legal Aspects of Reconnaissance in Airspace
and Outer Space, 61 Colum. L. Rev. 1074 (1961) (see
especially note 1 at 1074 ) . There seems to be authoritative
doctrine available to support such a conclusion and con-
siderable persuasive policy available to oppose it. An ade-
quate analysis of the issue of "legality'* would have to
distinguish between information-gathering and various
kinds of subversion. Espionage is increasingly part of the
pattern of coercion roughly identified as "indirect aggres-
sion." The attempt to make the issue of legality rest upon
the fact of war or peace seems to oversimplify the issue.
For an excellent discussion of wartime espionage ( and the
like) see Baxter, So-Called "Unprivileged Belligerency'' —
Spies, Guerrillas, and Saboteurs, 28 Brit. Yb. Intl L. 323
(1951).

29. See Kaplan & Katzenbach, The Political Founda-
tions OF International Law 147-154 (1961); see also
McDougal & Burke, Crisis in the Law of the Sea — Com-
munity Perspectives versus National Egoism, in Studies in
World Public Order 844-911 (1960).

30. The distinction between exclusive and inclusive is
borrowed from McDougal and Burke.

31. Fisher, Deputy for Restraint, 17 Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 272 (1961).

32. See Cheng, International Law and High Altitude
Flights — Balloons, Rockets and Man-Made Satellites, in
Legal Problems 141, 152-154; Trail Smelter Arbitration
(United States v. Canada), 3 U.N. Rep. Intl Arb. Awards
1905 (1938, 1941).

33. Note, National Sovereignty of Outer Space, 74 Harv.
L. Rev. 1154, 1159-1167 (1961); Lipson & Katzenbach, Re-
port TO THE National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-
tration ON THE Law of Outer Space 77-83 (1960);
Jessup & Taubenfeld, Controls for Outer Space 160-190
(1959).

34. Both excerpts are from Lipson, Outer Space and
International Law at 10 (Rand Paper P-1434, 1958).

35. For a brilliant discussion of this, see Herz, Intct-
national Politics in the Atomic Age (1959).

36. N.Y. Times, Sept. 26, 1961.

80

37. Reference here is to the problem of adjusting the
international legal system — a development of Western Eu-
ropean culture — to a plurality of contemporary normative
traditions. Kunz, Pluralism of Legal and Value Systems and
International Law, 49 Am. J. Int'l L. 370 (1955); North-
rop, The Taming of Nations (1952); Jenks, The Com-
mon Law of Mankind 63-172 ( 1958 ) . For some strictures
upon attempts to solve the problems, see Falk & Mendlo-
vitz, Some Criticisms of C. Wilfred Jenks' Approach to In-
ternational Law, 14 Rutgers L. Rev. 1, 4-16 (1959), and
McDougal & Lasswell, The Identification and Appraisal of
Diverse Systems of Public Order, in Studies in World
Public Order 3-41 (1960).

38. Fuller, Adjudication and the Rule of Law, and Mor-
ris, Peace through Law — The Role and Limits of Adjudica-
tion, Proceedings of the American Society of Inter-
national Lav7 1, 15 (1960).

39. Note, National Sovereignty of Outer Space, 74 Harv.
L. Rev. 1154, 1174 (1961).

40. Case of the S.S. "Lotus," P.C.I.J., ser. A, No. 10
(1927).

41. That is, self-determined self-defense is a primary at-
tribute of a decentralized legal order. Put differently, inter-
national law allows a state to characterize, in the first in-
stance, its coercive conduct as "self-defense." This is partly
a consequence of the absence of a definition of aggression.

42. Formalized expressions of public opinion — for in-
stance, resolutions of censure in the United Nations —
deserve the status of a weak sanction in the international
legal system. Over-analogy to the e£Fectiveness of censure
and ridicule in primitive societies is deceptive, as the Fall
1961 Soviet nuclear test explosions illustrate. We must not
forget how much such sanctions depend upon a fairly high
level of social integration among members of the com-
munity. A lack of just such integration is a major deficiency
of the international order. Thus we must be careful about
the analogies between decentralized primitive societies
and the decentralized international legal order.

43. E.g., Stone, Aggression and World Order (1958);
Stone, Quest for Survival (1961).

81

44. However, it is likely that a particularized use of force
would be treated as an exercise of police power. This
would lead the controversy to avoid the more destabilizing
rhetoric of "aggression" and "self-defense."

45. Hearings on International Control of Outer Space
Before the House Committee on Science and Astronautics,
86th Cong., 1st Sess., 107 (1959) (testimony of Admiral
Ward).

46. Becker, id. at 75.

47. See Lipson, Outer Space and International Law
at 12 (Rand Paper P-1434, 1958).

48. See criticism of Julius Stone for this tendency, in
Falk, The Reality of International Law, 14 World Politics
353 (1962).

49. It should be stressed that this minimum Soviet com-
mitment may turn out to be minimal.

50. See, op. cit. supra, note 45 at 2-3 (testimony of Sena-
tor Keating).

51. Cooper, Questions of Space Law, 3 Spaceflight 95
(1961).

52. Ibid.

53. Cooper, Flight-Space, and the Satellites, 7 Int'l &
CoMP. L. Q. 82 (1958); Cooper, High Altitude Flight and
National Sovereignty, 4 Intl L. Q. 411 (1951); Cooper,
Legal Problems of Upper Space, 1956 Proceedings of the
American Society of International Law 85; Cooper,
Sovereignty in Space, Flying (January 1959).

54. This is one way of expressing caution about the
relevance of the International Court of Justice to the solu-
tion of a Midas-Samos controversy.

55. Kissinger, Nuclear Testing and the Problems of
Peace, 37 Foreign Affairs 1 (1958).

56. N.Y. Times, Sept. 26, 1961.

82

Espionage and Arms Control '
Roland J. Stanger *

iHE UNITED STATES and Russia seem to agree on
one crucial point. Neither we nor they can look to a
military solution of the East- West conflict. All-out war,
regardless of which side struck first, could result only in
an intolerable level of mutual slaughter and destruc-
tion. Some millions of Americans and Russians
would perhaps survive, in a biological sense. The words
"The United States of America" and "The Soviet
Union" would, however, have lost any meaningful con-
tent. What kind of society the survivors could fashion
cannot be predicted and is, to many, unimportant.
Three developments have brought this about: the
atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, and the icbm. We
were first with the atomic bomb and the hydrogen
bomb, the Russians with the icbm. The scientific
world is so much one world, however, that being first
in anything can seemingly give only a passing advan-

* Professor of Law, Ohio State University.

tage, and the three significant developments Hsted have
all been to our long-run disadvantage. They have to-
gether cost us the advantages of our greater productive
capacity and our geographical isolation. Our mihtary
power is enormously greater than ever before, and yet
for the first time we are vulnerable to direct, devastat-
ing attack. This is the fault of no individual and no
party. It is the result of the fact that E = MC^ and man
discovered that before he succeeded in creating a so-
ciety which could live safely with that knowledge.

These developments have coincided with a marked
deterioration in our relations with the Russians. Our re-
sponse culminated, after a series of Russian aggressions,
in the doctrine of massive retaliation. The moral im-
pHcations of that doctrine troubled many of us. It was a
threat to raise the horrors of war to a new dimension.
Perhaps it is pointless to debate the morahty of differ-
ent forms of warfare. It may be that the distinctions
between humane and inhumane weapons and between
combatants and noncombatants have no vahdity.
They are, however, very much a part of traditional
Western morahty. Conventional war, moreover, in-
volved the gradual application of force. It was a war of
attrition, in fives as well as property. Each side was free
at any stage to decide it had had enough. Nuclear war-
fare, by substituting mass slaughter for attrition, de-
prives the belligerents of that choice.

For obvious reasons, we never defined just what en-
croachment on what American interest would lead us to
apply the doctrine. We did not in fact apply it on
several occasions when significant American interests

84

were infringed. The doctrine may have been a colossal
bluff. If anything made it credible, it was that we had
dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.

Massive retaliation, if it was ever viable, is now obso-
lete. It became so when the Russians demonstrated
they had the means to deliver thermonuclear warheads
on our territory. Massive retahation was a threat, de-
signed to deter; but a deterrent is no better than it is
credible. Massive retaliation, when it became a syno-
nym for mutual suicide, ceased to be credible except as
a response to a nuclear onslaught on the United
States, or, perhaps, Western Europe. At that stage it
would be largely pointless, except as an act of venge-
ance. Massive retahation is, then, no longer a doc-
trine— Hke the Monroe Doctrine — which can be ap-
plied to protect American interests in one part of the
world or another. It simply states the obvious fact that
if we are subjected to an all-out attack, we will respond
in kind, even if to do so would be irrational.

It can be said, however, that since both we and the
Russians know we will both suffer unacceptable dam-
age if either attacks, there is no risk that either side
will dehberately start an all-out war. Below the nuclear
threshold we should be able safely to engage in para-
military operations, wars by proxy, and even hmited
wars. Professor Stone has pointed out that this is no
mathematical certainty but a dangerous half-truth. It is
nonetheless the theory on which we are now operating.
Korea, Hungary, Indo-China, Quemoy and Matsu, the
Congo, Cuba and Laos illustrate that it can work — for
a time. History hardly suggests, however, that national

85

leaders always behave rationally; that their decisions
in times of international tension characteristically re-
flect an informed and dispassionate appraisal of the
risks of war and its consequences. This is more than
ever disquieting, since the consequences of a single mis-
calculation can be so catastrophic. Nor is miscalculation
all we have to fear. There are other appalHng risks in a
world of icbm's and thermonuclear warheads. They
exist because, given the destructive power of thermonu-
clear weapons, there is an enormous advantage to the
first strike and, because of the speed of icbm's, the re-
action time available to the defender is measured in
minutes. The fact that a missile, once fired, cannot be
recalled is a third element which augments the dangers
of our situation.

The risks are many. There is the risk of an accident
which could trigger a war. The accident could take
any of several forms. One is of simple mechanical or
human error. The incident in which a Sidewinder
downed a B-52 — though happily it did not involve nu-
clear weapons — ^is not reassuring.^ We can only hope
that the Russian control systems are at least as foolproof
as ours. Another is the false alarm, such as the flap,
greatly magnified in the popular press, which occurred
when our radar picked up the moon, rising over Nor-
way.^ Still another is the possibility of a breach of firing
discipline by a psychotic commander. One cannot have
both a capacity for immediate retaliation and a com-
pletely centralized, safe control system.

Another major risk is that of escalation. It seems
likely that any war between the major powers will, be-

86

cause of the strong motivation to pre-empt — ^that is, to
beat the other side to the draw — end in a thermonu-
clear exchange. If tactical nuclear weapons are used,
escalation to strategic nuclear weapons seems even
more likely. Present plans for the defense of Western
Europe are said, nevertheless, to call for the use of tacti-
cal nuclear weapons from the outset.

Again, there is the risk of so-called catalytic war. An
ambitious or desperate third country — China or Cuba,
for example — could try to provoke a nuclear war be-
tween the major powers. And there are other risks, all
of which increase each time another country joins the
nuclear club. Also, there is always the possibihty of
some new development. Perhaps the most radical
would be a real defense to the icbm — an effective anti-
missile missile,* for example. None is, apparently, now
in sight. The side which finishes second in this par-
ticular race will have achieved unilateral nuclear dis-
armament without the help of pickets.

How one should rank these risks, and what, cumula-
tively, the odds are for a thermonuclear exchange in a
year, or ten years, or twenty-five, is much debated. C. P.
Snow gives us up to ten years. ^ Other mortality tables
give the human race a longer life expectancy, but still
do not rate it an attractive insurable risk. It is not sur-
prising, then, that the morahsts and the strategists
have joined forces and are working together on the
problem of arms control. Those strategists, professional
and amateur, who two or three short years ago were
spinning out the intricacies of deterrence doctrine have
since changed their focus. Every avenue was a bhnd

87

alley, ending in an intolerable risk of annihilation.
E == MC^ is not the formula for national security.

I would add another factor: the threat which the
nuclear stalemate poses to our democratic way of life.
More and more of the vital decisions are made at the
highest level — that is, by the president and his inner
circle of advisers — behind closed doors, on the basis of
information and for reasons which cannot be revealed
or publicly debated. This is at present unavoidable
but nonetheless unfortunate. But more than this is in-
volved. For the first time in our country's history, we
feel truly insecure, and we find it difiicult to live with
insecurity. We fear Russian power, and are frustrated
that we cannot control the course of events in much of
the world. We have translated our hatred for commu-
nist ideology into an implacable hatred for the Russians
and the Chinese Communists. As a result, all our reac-
tions to every issue tend to be in cold-war terms. One
point of view is "pro-communist," another "anti-
communist," whether the issue is landing the marines
in Cuba, the minimum wage, or the fluoridation of our
water supply. Democratic government cannot operate
effectively in this atmosphere. Also, there is real danger
that, if we should lose out to the Communists in other
countries — ^Vietnam, Iran, Venezuela — our hatred, fear
and frustrations will lead to an act of desperation that
will touch off World War III.

What, then, of arms control as a way out?

When we still had a monopoly on nuclear weapons,
we offered the Baruch plan. Its major premise was that

88

effective control of fissionable materials required com-
plete international control of their extraction, process-
ing and use; that if fissionable materials in significant
quantities came into national hands, control was not
feasible. Our nuclear weapons are said to pack the
equivalent of ten tons of tnt for every human being on
earth. The Russian stockpile is presumably of a com-
parable order of magnitude. If the premise of the
Baruch plan was sound, we have indeed had it.

Since the Baruch plan failed to win acceptance, our
emphasis in disarmament negotiations has been on in-
spection. Perhaps we have over-emphasized its role, or
at least failed to distinguish between the roles which
inspection can play in different arms-control programs.
One should keep in mind that inspection is not an end
in itself. The immediate purpose of inspection is to ob-
tain information, but the end is to determine whether
an arms-control arrangement is being carried out. Even
this is not, of course, the ultimate end. Verification is
not control.

Information can be obtained either by open, author-
ized means, that is, by inspection, or by covert, unau-
thorized means, that is, by espionage. Our emphasis in
current negotiations on inspection — ^which played a
relatively minor role in disarmament arrangements in
the pre-nuclear era — implicitly recognizes that espio-
nage cannot now supply the adequate, rehable, usa-
ble information necessary to verify comphance with an
arms-control arrangement. An inquiry into the difficult
if not, indeed, insoluble problems involved in devising

89

a workable inspection system is, then, in eflFect also an
inquiry into the utility — almost by definition the lesser
utility — of espionage in arms control.

Useful information can, broadly speaking, be about
the intentions, the capabilities and the actions of the
parties to an arms-control scheme. All such information
will usually be relevant, but one kind or another may be
crucial in a particular arms-control scheme. Inspection
may yield information about intentions as well as capa-
bilities and actions, but it is probably a fair generaliza-
tion that reliable information as to intentions is the
most difficult to obtain, information about acts the
easiest. The point is worth keeping in mind in select-
ing from among possible arms-control schemes.

A test ban is a relatively promising arms-control ar-
rangement, partly because the crucial information
needed to know whether it is being observed is with re-
spect to acts. It is seemingly agreed that nuclear weap-
ons cannot be developed unless they are tested. We
are satisfied that tests in the atmosphere can be eflpec-
tively monitored. Our concern has been with under-
ground tests and also tests in outer space. There is de-
bate about how eflFective monitoring of underground
tests by seismic instruments implemented by periodic
on-the-spot checks can be. In the background of this de-
bate is the issue of how high the reliability or confidence
level of an inspection system must be. Some take the
position that it must be completely reliable. The basic
question is, however, whether the risk that the other
side will not only try to evade, but will both escape de-
tection and achieve significant results, is as great as the

90

risk with no test ban. The choice is between risks, not
between a risk and no risk. The other side will not try to
evade until it weighs the likelihood and consequences
of being caught against the possible but not certain
gains.

It seems most unlikely that the Russians resumed test-
ing and scuttled the test-ban negotiations because they
feared that we would successfully evade a test ban. It
seems doubtful also that the fear that the Russians
would successfully evade a ban has been a major factor
motivating American opposition to a test ban, even
though, with their closed and our open society, eva-
sion might be only difficult for them, whereas for us it
would probably be impossible. The Russian announce-
ment that they were resuming testing strongly suggests
that they did not believe they could test effectively
without detection, even in the absence of an agreed
inspection system. It is much more Hkely that the Rus-
sians resumed testing, in part at least, because they
believed they could gain more from weapons develop-
ment than we could. American pressures to resume test-
ing even before the Russians did so reflected the behef
that we could gain more than they could. This is one
form of a harder question. In an area so new and so
little understood as nuclear warfare, what will be the
impact on the two sides of a common restriction? Any
negotiator will be troubled because, for reasons he may
not discern, a restriction may have a greater impact on
the mihtary potential of his country than on that of
the other country. The conservative approach is to re-
fuse to agree to a restriction. This is, however, an elec-

91

tion to continue the arms race rather than to try arms
control. It has Httle to do with the feasibihty of a test
ban or the eflFectiveness of available inspection tech-
niques in ensuring its observance.

A test ban also raises the issue, particularly for the
Russians, of the side efiFects of inspection. This is the
problem, referred to by Professor Stone, of how much
other information — on conventional forces, nuclear
weapons, civil defense, communications, and the rest —
the inspectors assigned to monitor the test ban would or
might acquire. This is not a trivial point, to be dis-
missed as mere propaganda, nor one that arises only in
the test-ban situation. Inspection techniques must be
shaped as much as possible to take account of this
factor. This seems more feasible with respect to a test
ban than with other arms-control systems.

The role which inspection can play in other contexts
than the test ban is quite different and, unhappily,
much less impressive.

The haunting fear is of surprise attack. Protection
against surprise attack is essentially a matter of receiv-
ing adequate warning, that is, notice of the other side's
intention to attack. But it is precisely in providing reli-
able information regarding intention that inspection is
least satisfactory. Physical inspection to protect against
surprise attack, even if it meant constant surveillance of
every launching site, missile-firing submarine, plane and
train, would reveal only that every missile was ready for
launching, as a good missile should be. It would not re-
veal whether there was any intention to launch. It has
been said that a perfect inspection system with perfect

92

communications could at most give ten minutes* added
warning of a surprise attack.®

Inspection can, however, provide some protection
against surprise attack, in the nature of long-run rather
than immediate warning. Surprise attack is essentially a
matter of intention, but it also involves capability. If
one side's capabiHties are concentrated in weapons
with a low survival value — that is, weapons such as
liquid-fueled, fixed-site missiles and manned bomb-
ers, which are likely to be destroyed in an enemy attack
— the other side is warned to be on the alert against a
surprise attack and could be moved to launch a fore-
stalhng, pre-emptive attack of its own. This is so be-
cause, since these weapons are not likely to be avail-
able to respond to an attack, their obvious purpose is for
use in a surprise attack. If, on the other hand, one
side's capabilities are concentrated in weapons with a
high survival value — nuclear-powered, missile-launch-
ing submarines or sohd-fueled missiles in silos — this
constitutes some assurance to the other side that no sur-
prise attack is planned. Something comparable can be
said if one side's capabilities are concentrated in rela-
tively low-accuracy, city-destroying weapons, rather
than in high-accuracy, counter-force weapons capable
of knocking out the other side's bomber bases and mis-
sile sites. The assurance is in either case far from per-
fect, since any weapon, no matter how high its survival
value, can be used in a surprise attack against any tar-
get. It is still true, however, that the information which
inspection might give as to total capabihties could be
reassuring. Neither side is likely to launch a surprise at-

93

tack unless it enjoys a marked overall superiority in
weapons. Knowledge that the other side lacks such su-
periority can, then, lessen the fear of surprise attack
and slow down the arms race. It seems likely that the
information we gained regarding total Russian capa-
bilities— perhaps thanks to the U-2 — led to the slowing
down of our missile program.

The other risks inherent in the arms race, referred to
earlier, are, in the present context, forms of surprise at-
tack; and again inspection can play at best a limited
role in minimizing any of them. The accidental firing
of a nuclear weapon is, in a sense, an unintended and,
hopefully, limited surprise attack — one that surprises
both sides. If the control system of the side whose weap-
ons are involved can't prevent an accident, inspectors
can hardly do so, though they might conceivably get
notice to the other side that an accident was just that.
Resorting first to tactical nuclear weapons or to stra-
tegic nuclear weapons, in what began as a limited war,
is again a form of surprise attack. It seems most doubt-
ful that any inspection system could survive the out-
break of war, if for no other reason than that the side
eflFects of inspection would then loom so large. ^ If the
inspection system did survive, it could perhaps reveal
whether the armies in the field (whatever that term
may now mean) had a nuclear capability, and possibly
of what size; but again it could hardly give timely in-
formation of the key factor, intention to use the nuclear
weapons. The risk of catalytic war again involves the
element of surprise. However, although capability is
necessary and intention relevant, the crucial factor is an

94

act, e.g., the launching of a missile or missiles. In-
spectors could conceivably convey to the prospective
belligerents timely information as to the source of the
attack, and that possibility could serve to deter a third
country from trying the catalyst's role.

What has been said relates to the possible roles of in-
spection in minimizing the risks inherent in a fully
armed world. At best the role is marginal and the risks
awesome. Any significant reduction in those risks, to
anything like a tolerable level, requires some measure
of arms limitation. One possible arms-limitation
scheme would leave each side with enough bombers
and missiles to serve as a deterrent but not enough to
make surprise attack an attractive gamble. The purpose
of such a scheme would be so to reduce the destruc-
tive capabilities of the two sides that the continuance of
our civihzation would no longer depend wholly on their
will. The role of inspection in implementing such a
scheme would be almost entirely to ascertain total
capabihties. It would be a crucial role, since the pre-
mium on evasion would be high. That premium would,
moreover, rise as the permitted level of nuclear arms
approached zero. If the permitted level of nuclear arms
were, say, one hundred, and one side actually had one
hundred five, the difference could be insignificant. If
the permitted level were zero, and one side actually
had five, the difference could be decisive.

The ultimate question is, then, whether inspection
can give rehable information wdth respect to total capa-
bihty. The stakes are such that the question calls for a
long, hard look. One certainly shouldn't assume that,

95

because inspection to ascertain capability is, in general,
relatively more effective than inspection to ascertain
intention, it does not present difficult and perhaps even
insoluble problems.

It is probably true that a relatively simple inspection
system — ^possibly even an open skies system — could,
over a period, give reasonably reliable information as to
the total capability of each side in missile-firing sub-
marines, bombers, trains, and perhaps even liquid-
fueled, fixed-site missiles. Submarines must be built,
and must dock somewhere at some time. Trains have to
run on tracks. An air base can't be hidden, and per-
haps the same is true of launching sites for hquid-
fueled missiles. Underground silos housing sohd-fueled
missiles are another matter entirely. We, with our open
society, can't keep their location secret. The Russians,
with their closed society, may be able to. The New York
Times recently pubHshed a map of all our missile sites,
existing and planned.® Pravda has not published a com-
parable map showing Russian missile sites. So long as
contracts for the construction of our missile bases are
public contracts, let by competitive bidding, and labor
disputes at the sites are news in this country, the Rus-
sians can learn their location without benefit of inspec-
tors. The Russian system is different. Perhaps aerial in-
spection during construction would do the job, but
after that it may be that no system of inspection would
be effective. Moreover, if there is a limitation on nuclear
weapons, capability can be as much a question of
spare parts, pipe lines, production facilities, trained
personnel and the like, as of missiles in position to be

96

fired. Whether an inspection system, however complex,
could yield reliable information on capability in this
sense is highly debatable.

Inspection to determine capability also raises major
problems with respect to side effects. An inspection sys-
tem which gave reliable information as to capabilities
would necessarily pinpoint every stationary target, e.g.,
missile sites, airfields, for the other side. It would not do
so, however, with respect to missile-firing submarines
and trains. Again, if one side knew precisely the capa-
bilities of the other, it might risk a surprise attack, while
if it didn't, it wouldn't. This should not be true, how-
ever, if the nuclear arsenal of each side is significantly
limited. There could remain, however, the related risk
that inspection might reveal a flaw in one side's weap-
ons system, inherent or temporary, and known or un-
known to it.

Doubt as to the possible effectiveness of physical in-
spection has led some to explore the possibilities of
other kinds of inspection,^ such as the use of lie detec-
tors. More interesting is the idea of an open scientific
world, assured by recruiting, say, 10 per cent of the
scientists in any laboratory from nationals of the other
side. This would give a real impetus to the arms race,
unless it were coupled with a general arms-limitation
program. Again, an arms-limitation program might be
implemented by persuading enough of the citizens of
every country that their first duty was to see to it that
their country lived up to the arms-limitation agreement,
to the point that they would reveal any information
they might have of a violation by their own country. Im-

97

plementing this scheme of popular inspection would
present its problems: How could the informants com-
municate with the inspectors? How could the inform-
ants be protected? How could the information so ob-
tained be evaluated? The scheme would not, of course,
be foolproof, but it could raise the risk of evasion to a
very high level.

If general and complete disarmament, or even gen-
eral and complete nuclear disarmament, is not possible,
an arms-limitation program may be feasible which
would hmit each side's arsenal to missile-firing sub-
marines and, perhaps, trains — that is, to mobile launch-
ing devices — and would be implemented by both a
physical inspection system and inspection by popula-
tions. It would have the great advantages of removing
nuclear weapons from centers of population and of
minimizing the side ejffects of inspection. It may seem
paradoxical to suggest ehminating all fixed-site, land-
based missiles, when evasion of such a limitation is ad-
mittedly the most diflBcult to detect. It is, however,
likely that inspection would be more eflFective, and eva-
sion more difficult, if the prohibition were absolute
rather than partial. Any evidence which suggested that
one side was maintaining or trying to create any capa-
bility of this nature would then be unambiguous. Ad-
mittedly, there are risks in putting all one's nuclear
eggs in one or two baskets, but they may well be less
than the risks we now run.

It is time to consider inspection in implementation of
arms control in the context of Professor Wright's and
Professor Stone's illuminating discussions of espionage.

98

Espionage is simply covert, unauthorized inspection.
One cannot but be impressed by Professor Stone's argu-
ment that it is in the interest of all nations that espio-
nage not be considered prohibited by international law
per se. Professor Falk has, however, argued most effec-
tively that unilateral acts of espionage are destabiliz-
ing, and hence particularly dangerous in a world in
which both sides command so formidable a nuclear
capacity. Moreover, the thrust of Professor Stone's argu-
ment carries one well beyond the potential ability of
espionage to minimize the risks which confront man-
kind. Whether inspection — that is, open, authorized
espionage — can effectively implement a significant
measure of arms control is debatable. That it can be
more effective than espionage seems, however, clear
enough. Inspection is weak in the area of intention, but
Korea, Hungary, Suez, Cuba, and Algiers suggest that
traditional espionage is no stronger.

The significant point is, however, that intention is of
maximum importance in a world engaged in an arms
race. Arms control shifts the emphasis to capabifity,
which is more easily verified. Those who fear the risks
of arms control implemented by inspection should
ponder the risks we now take in making crucial de-
cisions on the basis of information obtained by espio-
nage. We may have slowed down our missile program
on the basis of information obtained from the U-2
flights. Information obtained by inspection would have
been more rehable. More recently we made another
crucial decision, on the basis of information obtained
by espionage, as to the situation in Cuba. Our choice is

99

between risks — not between the risks of arms control
and the safety of an arms race.

The hmitations imposed by traditional international
law on the conduct of states have httle relevance to
the arms-control problem. International law does not
forbid a country to arm itself with nuclear weapons, at
least for defensive purposes — and who has them for any
other purpose? It does not deny missile-firing subma-
rines the right to run submerged anywhere on the high
seas. It does not require nations to open their military
secrets to inspectors, nor does it preclude their punish-
ing those, citizens or aHens, who ferret out those secrets.
Arms control can be achieved only through interna-
tional agreements, though such agreements can be tacit.

International law and lawyers can contribute to
achieving arms control primarily by suggesting the
shape such agreements can take, and the means
through which they can be implemented.

1. On the problem of arms control, see generally Kis-
singer, The Necessity for Choice (1960); Arms Con-
trol, Disarmament and National Security (Brennan
ed. 1961); Arms Reduction, Program and Issues (Frisch
ed. 1961); ScHELLiNG & Halperin, Strategy and Arms
Control ( 1961 ) ; Bull, The Contool of the Arms Race
(1961); Inspection for Disarmament (Melman ed.
1958).

2. N.Y. Times, April 8, 1961, p. 1. See also the report of
the Bomarc incident, N.Y. Times, June 8, 1960, p. 2.

3. Hubbell, You Are Under Attack, Reader's Digest,
April 1961, p. 37.

4. Baldwin, Race for the Anti-Missile Missile, N.Y.
Times, April 15, 1962 (Magazine), p. 21.

100

5. N.Y. Times, Dec. 28, 1960, p. 1.

6. Kissinger, Arms Control, Inspection and Surprise At-
tack, 38 Foreign Affairs 557 at 562 (July 1960).

7. Cf. Schelling, Arms Control — Proposal for a Special
Surveillance Force, 13 World Politics No. 1, p. 1 (Oct.
1960).

8. More recently the Times published a map of the area
around Bitburg, in West Germany, showing the location of
missile sites — described as "the only ^hardened' missile sites
in Europe west of the Iron Curtain" — around the United
States air base there. N.Y. Times, Sept. 23, 1961, p. 6.

9. See Inspection for Disarmament (Melman ed.
1958).

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